A mother appeared in court today accused of murdering six of her newborn children in as many years and hiding their tiny corpses in a cellar.
In one of the worst infanticide cases in history, 38-year-old Celine Lesage faces life in prison for 'aggravated homicide'.
She is said to have strangled two of her children with a cord and choked four others by placing her finger in their mouths.
Each of the babies had been delivered 'in secret' between August 2000 and September 2007, with Lesage 'putting the babies and their dirty clothes neatly in a sealed plastic bag and hiding them', according to Cherbourg prosecutor Michel Garrandaux.
He told the court: 'Her attitude was wholly ambivalent. On the one hand she expressed her desire to have children, and then she refused to keep them.'
He said Lesage - a 'modest and otherwise ordinary housewife' who has as surviving son aged 14 - had 'no idea' why she had effectively turned into a serial killer.
Mr Garrandaux told La Manche Azzizes Court, in Cherbourg, it was the court's job to 'try to understand you, before judging you'.
Lesage spoke only to confirm her name on the first day of the trial.
Among those in the public gallery was Pascal Catherine, her 39-year-old former boyfriend who fathered the first five murdered children.
He was originally arrested for not reporting a crime and hiding the corpses, before his lawyers successfully argued he had thought the babies had been still born or had been aborted.
Police outside the building where the gruesome discovery of six bodies was made
Lesage and Mr Catherine split up in the spring of 2006 after 15 years living as common law man and wife.
Her horrific secret was uncovered a year later, on October 19, 2007, when a new boyfriend was taken to the decaying corpses by Lesage's teenage son.
Mr Garrandaux said: 'He was led to the cellar by the terrible smell of decomposing corpses and found them wrapped up in their bags.'
The second boyfriend, whose identity has not been released, later found his own baby son - the sixth murder victim - in a dustbin in the family home in Valognes.
Gendarmes were called and Lesage admitted killing all her newborn children, but claimed diminished responsibility.
Police throw up plastic sheeting to shield the scene from the public in 2007
She told police that she had 'absolutely no explanation' for what she had done and was placed on remand in the nearby city of Caen, Normandy.
Veronique Carre, defending, said: 'The facts of the case are not in dispute, but there is medical and psychological evidence to consider.
'My client believes she is responsible, but not guilty.'
Last year, another French mother Veronique Courjault was jailed for eight years for killing three babies.
She was deemed to be suffering from severe psychological problems, which meant she was in denial about being pregnant.
The trial continues.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1258101/Mother-Celine-Lesage-killed-babies-hid-bodies-cellar.html#ixzz0iHKpEVEc
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