The incident occurred in the city of Meaux, east of Paris. Neighbors of the family saw a pool of blood outside the apartment door on Christmas Day and called the police. Inside the apartment, four children between nine months and ten years old and their mother were found dead. According to the prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier the two oldest children and their mother have been stabbed to death while the two youngest have probably been suffocated.
The motive for the murders is unclear. The suspect, a 33-year-old man and father of the children, was arrested on Tuesday outside his father’s home northeast of Paris.
The man previously stabbed his partner when she was pregnant in 2019, but the investigation was closed because the wife did not want to make a report. The man has previously been enrolled in a psychiatric clinic.
The murders are the third case in a short time near Paris where a father is suspected of having murdered his children. In late November, a 41-year-old man admitted to killing his three daughters, all under the age of twelve. The police found them dead in his home in Alfortville, a suburb of Paris.
A month earlier, in October, a police officer killed his three daughters before taking his own life at his home in Vemars, northeast of the capital.
Flowers have been hung outside the apartment of the murdered family in Meaux, France.