Town in Shock After French Mom Admits Baby Killings

(July 29) -- A 47-year-old woman has admitted to fatally smothering eight of her newborns in what may be France's most serious case of infanticide, authorities said, and her shocked co-workers and neighbors say they never knew she was pregnant -- much less potentially homicidal.

Dominique Cottrez was charged with voluntary manslaughter.

Even her two daughters, Virginie, 22, and Emeline, 21, who appeared in court today to support their mother, told La Voix du Nord that they were devastated to find out the news. Emeline said she had only noticed their mother sometime seemed "tired" but otherwise "worked 24-7" between her job as a home health care worker for the elderly and in her home.

Emeline called her mother "courageous" but "secretive." She and her sister have one young son each. Emeline said her mother had been present at her son's birth and was so moved that she had "tears in her eyes." She was a wonderful grandmother who regularly baby-sat both baby boys, the sisters said.

Prosecutor Eric Vaillant said Cottrez had a phobia about doctors and went through a difficult first pregnancy, according to the U.K.'s Telegraph. He said Cottrez told police that her husband, a town councilor and prominent member of the community, did not know about the babies. Vaillant said Cottrez said she was never in denial about being pregnant, Le Parisien reported.

Six of Cottrez's babies' bodies were reportedly found in plastic bags this week in the couple's house in the small village of Villers-au-Tertres in northeastern France, where Cottrez has lived all her life.

That grisly discovery was made Saturday after a man digging up a garden at a property that once belonged to Cottrez's parents a half mile away found the bones of what turned out to be two newborns. Based on what they found there, police then went to the Cottrez home.

The only clue as to why apparently no one knew Cottrez was pregnant was that she was overweight. Cottrez had a fairly serious weight problem, some who knew her told AOL News today.

"She was a very good worker and the elderly people she helped thought very highly of her," Francine Broussard, a colleague of Cottrez at SSIAD, an association that runs facilities for old people in Douai, told AOL News.

Broussard said she had no idea that Cottrez had been pregnant at least eight times.

"She was heavy," Broussard said. "But it was not a problem that kept her from doing her work. It's a terrible tragedy. I didn't know she was pregnant, and I don't think other people here did either. Everyone liked her."

Cottrez remained under arrest today, and police and top forensic investigators brought in from Paris expanded their search of her home and another property where the remains of the babies were found. Cottrez's husband, Pierre-Marie Cottrez, was released after being questioned.

Claudine Masclet, whose husband, Charles, is also a town councilor, said she knows the couple and never noticed anything strange about them, except for Dominique's weight.

"Our whole town is in shock, it's all anyone is talking about," Claudine Masclet told AOL News. "We didn't know. I don't know anyone who knew [Dominique] was pregnant all those times or that they had any problems. I didn't see her that much and my husband was certainly not around [Pierre-Marie] all that much, but we saw nothing strange. But she was fat and that could be why we didn't see the pregnancies."