The police custody of the 33-year-old man suspected of having killed his wife and four children discovered dead Monday evening in Meaux (Seine-et-Marne) was extended on Wednesday, declared the public prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier. “Due to his state of health, the accused has not been able to be heard until now,” added Jean-Baptiste Bladier in his press release.
“The autopsies of the five victims will be carried out during the day”
Tuesday, during a press conference, he indicated that the suspect had been hospitalized, under police custody, for significant hand injuries. The latter was arrested in Sevran on Tuesday morning, in front of his father’s home. A kitchen knife was found on him and he was wearing bloodstained clothes, according to a police source.
“The autopsies of the five victims will be carried out during the day” on Wednesday, the prosecutor also wrote. Monday evening, the 35-year-old woman born in Haiti and her four children, two girls aged 10 and seven and two boys aged four years and nine months were found dead in their home, in a “crime scene of a very great violence”, described Jean-Baptiste Bladier. Although the bodies of the woman and her daughters were slashed with numerous knives, there were no apparent wounds on those of the boys, suggesting suffocation or drowning.
Life imprisonment incurred, if there is no impairment of discernment
As for the precise moment of the events, it has not been exactly determined. During his press conference, the prosecutor reported that neighbors had heard arguments on the night of December 24 to 25 but were not worried, the mother having the habit of shouting at her children. A judicial investigation will be opened at the end of the father’s custody for “intentional homicide of minors aged 15” and “intentional homicide by spouse”.
If he is found criminally responsible, without abolition or alteration of discernment, he risks life imprisonment. The question indeed arises for the suspect, who has been receiving treatment for depressive and psychotic disorders since 2017. His criminal record is clean of any convictions but he was already placed in police custody in November 2019 for having stabbed his partner in the ‘scapula. The procedure was dismissed on the grounds of deficient mental state, an expert report having attested to the abolition of his discernment.