German prosecutors are set to slap murder charges against a 27-year-old woman for allegedly killing five of her six children inside their home.
According to Heribert Kaune-Gebhardt, a prosecutor in nearby Wuppertal, investigations on the children’s bodies were ongoing and that autopsy results showed that the children were sedated and suffocated to death.
However, it remained unclear how they died as police said no physical violence was shown.
A sixth, the eldest child, meanwhile, was said to be sent to his grandmother on Thursday before attempting to take her own life by jumping in front of a train at the Düsseldorf railway station.
The mother suffered serious but not life-threatening injuries. She was yet to be investigated by authorities.
“Our authorities will do everything to investigate this case,” North Rhine-Westphalia State Governor Armin Laschet was quoted as saying.
“The thoughts of very many people are with the family, the grandmother, the surviving boy and everybody who is affected by this event,” he added.
According to police, they were alerted by the grandmother before 2 p.m. that something was going on with her daughter, but five of the children were already found lifeless in bed upon their arrival.
Investigators believed that the underlying reason emerged from the broken marriage as the mother and her husband have already separated for a year.
They said the 11-year-old son left for school as usual and was directed to go to his grandmother’s house upon picking him up.
The woman sent her mother a message that she “could not go on” citing marital problems with the 28-year-old father of her four youngest children.
PHOTO BY FLICKR
