French mum confesses to baby murders | Warwick Crime | Robberies, Assaults and Convictions in Warwick

A NURSING assistant on Thursday admitted killing eight of her newborn babies and stashing their tiny remains in plastic bags in a small village in northern France, officials said.

Douai town prosecutor Eric Vaillant said 45-year-old Dominique Cottrez had been charged with the murders after telling police "she did not want any more children and did not want to see a doctor to get contraception."

Cottrez's husband Pierre-Marie Cottrez, also 45, was freed after he denied any knowledge of the killings, which came to light after police found skeletal remains wrapped in plastic at two village addresses.

His wife, whose heavy build appears to have concealed the pregnancies from acquaintances, now faces trial and life imprisonment.

In past cases in France some defendants have said they were in denial about their pregnancies and not fully responsible for their actions, but Vaillant said Cottrez had admitted to being "perfectly aware" of her condition.

Stunned residents of the pair's quiet village of Villers-au-Tertre in northern France put flowers and candles outside the two houses where police had found the infants' bodies over the previous few days.

Prosecutors described it as the worst case of infanticide in recent French history, following a string of similar cases in which isolated and troubled mothers disposed of their newborns.

The suspects were brought before a magistrate in the nearby town of Douai to hear the charges. They were remanded in custody and prosecutors promised to hold a news conference to explain the charges.

Pierre-Marie Cottrez worked as a carpenter and was a respected member of the council in Villers-au-Tertre, a 620-strong community.

"He's on his third term in office. He used to volunteer in the community. He's a respectable man," local mayor Patrick Mercier told reporters.

Mercier said the councillor's wife was a more withdrawn person who rarely took part in village life. He said she had a weight problem which might be the reason why any pregnancies had passed unnoticed.

"No one was aware of anything at all," said the shocked mayor.

The pair were arrested on Tuesday and questioned all day on Wednesday while police used sniffer dogs to search two addresses after the new owners of a home found the bones of two infants while digging in their garden.

The house previously belonged to the parents of the arrested woman.

Search teams then headed on to the couple's current home in another part of the village, where six more sets of remains were found, a local councillor told reporters.

Gendarmes were deployed outside one of the houses where the bodies were found, and sealed off the entrance to the macabre scene with plastic sheeting.

"I'm very upset. I baptise five children every Sunday in the 17 villages of the parish. You don't just throw children out like that in a big bag. It's incomprehensible," said local priest Father Robert Meignotte.

The couple had lived in the village for 15 years and had two grown-up daughters who have children themselves, local residents said.

The incident follows a string of similar cases in France.

Earlier this year a mother was convicted of killing six of her newborn children and hiding them in the cellar of her house in northwestern France.

Another notorious recent case was Veronique Courjault, who in June 2009 was jailed for smothering two baby boys born in secret at her expatriate home in South Korea, and a third child born in France, and hidden them in a freezer.