Mum killed six babies and hid them in cellar

A MOTHER yesterday admitted murdering six of her newborn babies and hiding their corpses in the cellar.

A mother has admitted murdering six of her newborn babies and hiding them in her cellar A mother has admitted murdering six of her newborn babies and hiding them in her cellar

In one of the worst ever infanticide cases, Celine ­Lesage, 38, strangled two of the infants with a cord and choked four others by placing her finger in their mouths.

She faces life in prison for “aggravated homicide”.

An expressionless Lesage told the French court in Cherbourg, Normandy: “I admit the charges.”

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The father of five of the babies was in the public gallery. Pascal Catherine, 39, her former boyfriend, had told the court through his lawyers that he believed they had been stillborn or aborted. The father of the last child to be murdered, Luc Margueritte, found his son’s body in a dustbin.

Earlier he had been led to a cellar by Lesage’s surviving teenage son to find the other decayed or ­decaying corpses in plastic bags.

Asked by the judge if the babies had been alive before she killed them, ­Lesage hesitated, then replied, “I cannot answer”. She then added: “Yes, your honour”. Each baby was delivered in secret between August 2000 and September 2007. Lesage “put the babies and their dirty clothes neatly in a sealed plastic bag and hid them,” prosecutor Michel Garrandaux said.

The “modest and otherwise ordinary” housewife’s horrific secret was uncovered at the family home in the town of Valognes on October 19, 2007.

She told police she had “absolutely no explanation” for what she had done and claimed diminished responsibility.

Her lawyer said yesterday: “The facts of the case are not in dispute...my client believes she is responsible but not guilty.” The trial continues.

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