Texas man gets death penalty for beheading 3 kids
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
The Associated Press
EDINBURG, Texas – A jury sentenced a south Texas man to death on Thursday, four days after convicting him of capital murder for beheading his common law wife’s three children in 2003.
It is the second death sentence for John Allen Rubio, who was convicted of killing the children all under the age of four – smothering, stabbing and ultimately decapitating them – in a windowless Brownsville apartment.
Jurors deliberated for about four hours before returning the sentence.
Before entering the sentence, Hidalgo County District Judge Noe Gonzalez asked Rubio if there was anything he would like to say.
“I thank the jury for giving me a chance to show what I could,” Rubio said quietly.
Gonzalez, who said he had sentenced more people to death than any judge in south Texas, said he recognized that a lot of people went through what Rubio did, citing his abusive and troubled childhood.
“I don’t know what happened, but I know what this jury found,” Gonzalez said. “I have never seen a crime like this.”
Jurors on Monday found Rubio guilty on four counts of capital murder – one charge for each child and one for the children together.
Rubio was previously convicted of the murders in 2003 and sentenced to death. But a state appeals court overturned his conviction in 2007 because statements from the children’s mother – Angela Camacho – were wrongly allowed as evidence during the trial. Camacho pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence for her role in the slayings.
At his current trial, Rubio pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the jury rejected his defense and convicted him.
Rubio’s attorneys did not deny Rubio killed the children. But one of them, Nat Perez, said something must have gone terribly wrong in his client’s life for him to have done so. As a final indignity, no family members came to support Rubio, Perez said. “And we called them yesterday to come testify and they didn’t show up,” he said.
Rubio showed his only emotion of the nearly three-week trial during Perez’s closing statement Thursday.
At one point, Perez asked Rubio to stand up and face the jury. Rubio stood, but did not look at the jury with his reddened eyes.
“He’s a child of the Valley, too,” Perez said, referencing Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos’s comment earlier in the trial that Rubio’s crime tore at the very fabric of the Rio Grande Valley.
During the sentencing phase, prosecutors called witnesses who portrayed Rubio as a remorseless killer. Even inside prison, Rubio would continue to be a threat to others, witnesses said.
Rubio’s attorneys argued that it’s unlikely that a man convicted of killing three children would pose a threat in prison. With the exception of setting several fires while on death row, Rubio never attempted to assault inmates or guards, they said. Their experts testified that Rubio’s childhood – filled with violence at home, “toxic” parents, drug use and prostitution – damaged him developmentally and set him on a path for failure.
After being flagged down by Rubio’s brother, police found the bodies of 3-year-old Julissa Quesada, 14-month-old John E. Rubio and 2-month-old Mary Jane Rubio on March 11, 2003, in the apartment Rubio shared with Angela Camacho.
At various times since the crime, Rubio claimed the children were possessed and that he was the “chosen one” intended to save the world. Defense experts diagnosed Rubio as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, a determination rejected by prosecution experts.
Prosecutors pointed out that in the midst of the murders, Rubio had sex with Camacho, telling her it would likely be their last chance. They were in the process of cleaning up the crime scene when Rubio’s brother and girlfriend stopped by.
The first police officer on the scene testified that after he saw the decapitated body of one child in a back bedroom, Rubio held his wrists out and said, “arrest me.”
The apartment was a step up for a family that had lived on a park bench and in an abandoned building. The state had taken away the children and returned them when Rubio and Camacho enrolled them in government assistance programs.
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/worldnation/809352-227/texas-man-gets-death-penalty-for-beheading.html
Isabella Brooke Knightly and Austin Gamez-Knightly
In Memory of my Loving Husband, William F. Knightly Jr. Murdered by ILLEGAL Palliative Care at a Nashua, NH Hospital
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Oregon Court of Appeals rules mother who tested positive for marijuana shouldn't lose kids
Oregon Court of Appeals rules mother who tested positive for marijuana shouldn't lose kids
Published: Wednesday, July 28, 2010, 4:17 PM Updated: Wednesday, July 28, 2010, 4:52 PM
Helen Jung, The Oregonian
The state cannot take children away from a mother who tests positive for marijuana use without evidence that shows her drug use endangers the children, the Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled.
In a decision issued today, the court reversed a Marion County juvenile court ruling that the state Department of Human Services had jurisdiction over two children, a 19-month-old and a 6-month old. The state had argued that the mother's marijuana use "presented a reasonable likelihood of harm to her two children."
But the appeals court agreed with the mother's argument that the state failed to provide any evidence connecting her behavior with risk to the children.
The children and the mother are identified only by their initials in the case.
The state first became involved with the children in October 2009 when it received a report that a man was selling methamphetamine at the family's home.
DHS workers visited the home and met the father, who appeared to be "under the influence of a controlled substance." The agency later learned that the father was a registered sex offender. The mother arrived home later and denied using drugs.
At the time, the workers found that the home was clean, the children had appropriate food to eat and they appeared "happy and healthy," the appeals court wrote in its decision. A DHS worker also had testified that the mother "appears to have appropriate parenting skills."
The parents agreed to have the two children stay with their maternal grandmother while DHS checked to see whether the father had completed his required sex offender treatment. During that time, a urinalysis from the mother came back testing positive for marijuana.
The mother admitted using the drug at a party a week or two earlier but said she did not use it frequently and never used it around the children. A test taken a few weeks later came back negative for marijuana and other drugs.
But the state had trouble getting in touch with the mother, who did not have a working phone and did not show up to a December 2009 meeting, according to the appeals court decision. She eventually did meet with DHS but failed to submit another urinalysis as requested.
It was "the accumulation of things" that led the juvenile court to conclude that the mother had a chemical abuse problem and find that the state had jurisdiction over the children.
But in reversing the decision, the appeals court said "the record lacks evidence showing that mother's use of marijuana, her 'chemical abuse problem' as found by the trial court, is a condition or circumstance that poses any risk to her children. That evidence is necessary to establish jurisdiction over the children."
The case goes back to the juvenile court, said Holly Telerant, attorney for the mother. She declined to comment on where the children are living currently. The Department of Human Services did not immediately have comment.
-- Helen Jung
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2010/07/oregon_court_of_appeals_rules_mother_who_tested_positive_for_marijuna_shouldnt_lose_kids.html
Published: Wednesday, July 28, 2010, 4:17 PM Updated: Wednesday, July 28, 2010, 4:52 PM
Helen Jung, The Oregonian
The state cannot take children away from a mother who tests positive for marijuana use without evidence that shows her drug use endangers the children, the Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled.
In a decision issued today, the court reversed a Marion County juvenile court ruling that the state Department of Human Services had jurisdiction over two children, a 19-month-old and a 6-month old. The state had argued that the mother's marijuana use "presented a reasonable likelihood of harm to her two children."
But the appeals court agreed with the mother's argument that the state failed to provide any evidence connecting her behavior with risk to the children.
The children and the mother are identified only by their initials in the case.
The state first became involved with the children in October 2009 when it received a report that a man was selling methamphetamine at the family's home.
DHS workers visited the home and met the father, who appeared to be "under the influence of a controlled substance." The agency later learned that the father was a registered sex offender. The mother arrived home later and denied using drugs.
At the time, the workers found that the home was clean, the children had appropriate food to eat and they appeared "happy and healthy," the appeals court wrote in its decision. A DHS worker also had testified that the mother "appears to have appropriate parenting skills."
The parents agreed to have the two children stay with their maternal grandmother while DHS checked to see whether the father had completed his required sex offender treatment. During that time, a urinalysis from the mother came back testing positive for marijuana.
The mother admitted using the drug at a party a week or two earlier but said she did not use it frequently and never used it around the children. A test taken a few weeks later came back negative for marijuana and other drugs.
But the state had trouble getting in touch with the mother, who did not have a working phone and did not show up to a December 2009 meeting, according to the appeals court decision. She eventually did meet with DHS but failed to submit another urinalysis as requested.
It was "the accumulation of things" that led the juvenile court to conclude that the mother had a chemical abuse problem and find that the state had jurisdiction over the children.
But in reversing the decision, the appeals court said "the record lacks evidence showing that mother's use of marijuana, her 'chemical abuse problem' as found by the trial court, is a condition or circumstance that poses any risk to her children. That evidence is necessary to establish jurisdiction over the children."
The case goes back to the juvenile court, said Holly Telerant, attorney for the mother. She declined to comment on where the children are living currently. The Department of Human Services did not immediately have comment.
-- Helen Jung
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2010/07/oregon_court_of_appeals_rules_mother_who_tested_positive_for_marijuna_shouldnt_lose_kids.html
Child Welfare Experts Urge Congress to Expand Title IV-E Waivers Hearing focuses on impact of more family preservation services
Latest News
Child Welfare Experts Urge Congress to Expand Title IV-E Waivers
Hearing focuses on impact of more family preservation services
(July 29, 2010)
by Patrick Boyle
The federal government should expand a flexible funding program that helps states and counties reform their child welfare systems and keep more children out of foster care, a panel of experts told a congressional committee Thursday.
States participating in the demonstration program, known as the Title IV-E wavier, which allows federal funding to the state to be shifted into different services, have improved their child abuse and neglect prevention and family preservation, the witnesses told the House Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, under the Ways and Means Committee.
“The waiver has shown dramatic impacts,” said George Sheldon, secretary of Florida’s Department of Children and Families. For example, he said, the number of children in out-of-home care has dropped by 36 percent in the four years since his state was granted a waiver.
He and others told the subcommittee that expanding the waiver program to other states should be part of a larger reform of child welfare financing that would focus more on family preservation and permanency placement for youths removed from their homes.
Under the waiver program, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) allows specific states to spend funds they get under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act on efforts to keep children out of foster care. Normally, Title IV-E money is spent on services and administrative costs for youth in foster care.
Experiments began under the Clinton Administration in the late 1990s in Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon, and have since expanded. The waivers vary by state and typically are not statewide. Studies have found some promising results in reducing out-of-home placements and the duration of placements that are made, and in increasing permanent placements for youths who had been removed from home.
Several child welfare advocates, such as Casey Family Programs, want Congress to give HHS authority to grant IV-E waivers to more states, which prompted yesterday’s hearing, chaired by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.).
McDermott’s own state is trying to institute new reforms while facing a state budget crunch and cutbacks in federal funding. “We really feel this waiver would help us,” said Washington State Rep. Ruth Kagi (D), because it would allow the state to use some IV-E money for services to keep families together.
Another reason it might help: The waiver in Florida required the state to maintain the level of child welfare funding in effect at the time the waiver was granted, and provides for small annual increases. Those provisions keep the state from using the federal money to replace state expenditures. Casey CEO William Bell told the subcommittee that for future waivers, “I would suggested that we absolutely maintain the ‘maintenance of effort provision.’ ”
A recent report from Casey supports the waivers and reviews their impact in several states.
Fred Wulczyn, a research fellow at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, testified that the most consistent positive effects of the waivers involve using the money for subsidized guardianship, under which relatives are paid to help care for children who have been removed from their parents.
While the advocates focused on the cost-neutrality and potential savings of the waivers, because they allow existing funds to be shifted to different services, Rutledge Hutson of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) appealed for more funding.
“We’ve got to have a infusion of funds,” especially for preservation services, said Hutson, director of child welfare policy at CLASP. “The current financing structure is at odds with achieving the outcomes we want to achieve.”
“If we really want to improve the outcomes, we have to take on comprehensive finance reform,” Hutson said.
The witnesses’ prepared testimony and a link to the hearing are here.
http://www.youthtoday.org/publication/article.cfm?article_id=4188
Child Welfare Experts Urge Congress to Expand Title IV-E Waivers
Hearing focuses on impact of more family preservation services
(July 29, 2010)
by Patrick Boyle
The federal government should expand a flexible funding program that helps states and counties reform their child welfare systems and keep more children out of foster care, a panel of experts told a congressional committee Thursday.
States participating in the demonstration program, known as the Title IV-E wavier, which allows federal funding to the state to be shifted into different services, have improved their child abuse and neglect prevention and family preservation, the witnesses told the House Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, under the Ways and Means Committee.
“The waiver has shown dramatic impacts,” said George Sheldon, secretary of Florida’s Department of Children and Families. For example, he said, the number of children in out-of-home care has dropped by 36 percent in the four years since his state was granted a waiver.
He and others told the subcommittee that expanding the waiver program to other states should be part of a larger reform of child welfare financing that would focus more on family preservation and permanency placement for youths removed from their homes.
Under the waiver program, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) allows specific states to spend funds they get under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act on efforts to keep children out of foster care. Normally, Title IV-E money is spent on services and administrative costs for youth in foster care.
Experiments began under the Clinton Administration in the late 1990s in Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon, and have since expanded. The waivers vary by state and typically are not statewide. Studies have found some promising results in reducing out-of-home placements and the duration of placements that are made, and in increasing permanent placements for youths who had been removed from home.
Several child welfare advocates, such as Casey Family Programs, want Congress to give HHS authority to grant IV-E waivers to more states, which prompted yesterday’s hearing, chaired by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.).
McDermott’s own state is trying to institute new reforms while facing a state budget crunch and cutbacks in federal funding. “We really feel this waiver would help us,” said Washington State Rep. Ruth Kagi (D), because it would allow the state to use some IV-E money for services to keep families together.
Another reason it might help: The waiver in Florida required the state to maintain the level of child welfare funding in effect at the time the waiver was granted, and provides for small annual increases. Those provisions keep the state from using the federal money to replace state expenditures. Casey CEO William Bell told the subcommittee that for future waivers, “I would suggested that we absolutely maintain the ‘maintenance of effort provision.’ ”
A recent report from Casey supports the waivers and reviews their impact in several states.
Fred Wulczyn, a research fellow at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, testified that the most consistent positive effects of the waivers involve using the money for subsidized guardianship, under which relatives are paid to help care for children who have been removed from their parents.
While the advocates focused on the cost-neutrality and potential savings of the waivers, because they allow existing funds to be shifted to different services, Rutledge Hutson of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) appealed for more funding.
“We’ve got to have a infusion of funds,” especially for preservation services, said Hutson, director of child welfare policy at CLASP. “The current financing structure is at odds with achieving the outcomes we want to achieve.”
“If we really want to improve the outcomes, we have to take on comprehensive finance reform,” Hutson said.
The witnesses’ prepared testimony and a link to the hearing are here.
http://www.youthtoday.org/publication/article.cfm?article_id=4188
Child Welfare Advocates Clash Over Rhode Island
Child Welfare Advocates Clash Over Rhode Island
YouthWorkTalk
Posted by
Patrick Boyle Home
– Child Welfare Advocates Clash Over Rhode Island
7/26/2010
With Rhode Island’s child welfare system facing a lawsuit by one advocacy group, another advocate has taken aim at both the state and the plaintiff.
Richard Wexler, head of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, held a news conference in Rhode Island Thursday to issue a 64-page report calling the state “the child warehousing capital of America.” The report, State of Denial: Why Rhode Island’s Child Welfare System is so Dismal – and How to Make it Better, says the state removes children from their homes 80 percent more frequently than the national average, and places them in the poorest of group homes and institutional care.
Children’s Rights, a New York-based advocacy group, also believes Rhode Island’s child welfare system is a mess, and in 2007 joined a class action lawsuit by the state’s child advocate, Jametta Alston, against the state Department of Children, Youth and Families in an effort to force reforms. In June, the federal First Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the lawsuit, which had been thrown out by a lower court. The case is now awaiting reassignment to a judge.
Wexler charged that reforms pushed by Children’s Rights in other states rely too heavily on continuing to remove children from their homes, and that any settlement in Rhode Island would probably “exacerbate” that practice. He called for a settlement emphasizing “safe, proven alternatives to taking away so many children in the first place.”
Susan Lambiase, associate director of Children’s Rights, replied via e-mail that Wexler’s report “identifies issues we have been trying to get Rhode Island officials to address” through the lawsuit, including “the growing number of children placed in large, unsafe institutional settings.” She said lawsuits by Children’s Rights in other states led to changes that include reducing foster care populations.
The nonprofit National Coalition for Child Protection Reform advocates alternatives to removing children from their homes. The nonprofit Children’s Rights has brought class actions lawsuits against several states to reform their child welfare systems.
http://www.youthtoday.org/talk/comments.cfm?blog_id=377
YouthWorkTalk
Posted by
Patrick Boyle Home
– Child Welfare Advocates Clash Over Rhode Island
7/26/2010
With Rhode Island’s child welfare system facing a lawsuit by one advocacy group, another advocate has taken aim at both the state and the plaintiff.
Richard Wexler, head of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, held a news conference in Rhode Island Thursday to issue a 64-page report calling the state “the child warehousing capital of America.” The report, State of Denial: Why Rhode Island’s Child Welfare System is so Dismal – and How to Make it Better, says the state removes children from their homes 80 percent more frequently than the national average, and places them in the poorest of group homes and institutional care.
Children’s Rights, a New York-based advocacy group, also believes Rhode Island’s child welfare system is a mess, and in 2007 joined a class action lawsuit by the state’s child advocate, Jametta Alston, against the state Department of Children, Youth and Families in an effort to force reforms. In June, the federal First Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the lawsuit, which had been thrown out by a lower court. The case is now awaiting reassignment to a judge.
Wexler charged that reforms pushed by Children’s Rights in other states rely too heavily on continuing to remove children from their homes, and that any settlement in Rhode Island would probably “exacerbate” that practice. He called for a settlement emphasizing “safe, proven alternatives to taking away so many children in the first place.”
Susan Lambiase, associate director of Children’s Rights, replied via e-mail that Wexler’s report “identifies issues we have been trying to get Rhode Island officials to address” through the lawsuit, including “the growing number of children placed in large, unsafe institutional settings.” She said lawsuits by Children’s Rights in other states led to changes that include reducing foster care populations.
The nonprofit National Coalition for Child Protection Reform advocates alternatives to removing children from their homes. The nonprofit Children’s Rights has brought class actions lawsuits against several states to reform their child welfare systems.
http://www.youthtoday.org/talk/comments.cfm?blog_id=377
DCF Secretary to testify in D.C. on foster care
DCF Secretary to testify in D.C. on foster care
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The head of the state's child welfare agency will testify in Washington D.C. about how states can use federal funds to keep children out of foster care.
Florida's Department of Children and Families was the first to accept a federal waiver that allows unprecedented flexibility in funding abuse prevention services, which include parenting classes, substance abuse and mental health treatment and even emergency cash assistance.
The flexibility allows the department to keep more families together by offering them help up front, instead of removing the children first. DCF has reduced the number of foster children by 36 percent since 2007.
DCF Secretary George Sheldon will speak before a U.S. House Subcommittee on Thursday.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/29/1751848/dcf-secretary-to-testify-in-dc.html#ixzz0v5JTyyYB
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The head of the state's child welfare agency will testify in Washington D.C. about how states can use federal funds to keep children out of foster care.
Florida's Department of Children and Families was the first to accept a federal waiver that allows unprecedented flexibility in funding abuse prevention services, which include parenting classes, substance abuse and mental health treatment and even emergency cash assistance.
The flexibility allows the department to keep more families together by offering them help up front, instead of removing the children first. DCF has reduced the number of foster children by 36 percent since 2007.
DCF Secretary George Sheldon will speak before a U.S. House Subcommittee on Thursday.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/29/1751848/dcf-secretary-to-testify-in-dc.html#ixzz0v5JTyyYB
Couple in custody after 8 dead babies found in plastic bags Infants' corpses buried in village in northern France
Couple in custody after 8 dead babies found in plastic bags
Infants' corpses buried in village in northern France
Luc Moleux / Reuters
Police outside the home of a couple who was expected to appear in court Thursday after police found the corpses of eight newborn babies in their village in northern France.
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 7/29/2010 4:29:27 AM ET
Share Print Font:
A French couple was expected to appear in court Thursday after police found the corpses of eight newborn babies in a village in northern France.
A judicial official said the corpses were found in two places in Villers-au-Tertre, a village of about 700 people not far from the city of Lille.
"Two people are being held in custody. They are the mother and father of the children," public prosecutor Eric Vaillant told Reuters.
French newspaper Le Figaro reported two of the bodies had been hidden for more than 20 years.
"What is certain is that the new born babies all had the same parents. They were stuffed inside plastic bags and then buried," an unnamed detective told the U.K.'s Daily Mail.
They were being held on suspicion of concealment of a corpse and failing to report a crime, the BBC said, adding that the couple were due to appear in court Thursday.
The couple had two grown-up daughters, reportedly in their 20s, and were grandparents, a local resident told Agence France Presse.
'Wouldn't harm a fly'
One teenage girl said the couple's daughters were nice girls and described the mother as a simple, quiet woman "who wouldn't harm a fly," AFP reported.
"These are attractive, helpful, polite and courteous people," a neighbor, a man in his 50s, told the news service.
They had done nothing to suggest that they might be capable of abnormal behavior, he said. "The husband was even elected to the town council," he added.
Radio France International said the man worked in the building trade was and his wife was a nursing assistant.
Police cordoned off the house with yellow-and-black tape and the house stood with doors and windows shuttered Wednesday night. The prosecutor for the Nord region was planning a news conference Thursday.
An initial report by French radio that the mother had admitted to "systematically" killing her babies without telling her husband was later rejected by a police source, the U.K's Guardian newspaper said.
Pregnancy denial
France has seen a string of cases in recent years of mothers killing their newborns and saving and hiding the corpses.
In one case, Celine Lesage was sentenced in March to 15 years in prison after acknowledging in court that she killed six of her newborns, whose corpses were found in plastic bags in her basement in northwest France.
Another Frenchwoman, Veronique Courjault, was convicted last year of murdering three of her newborn children.
Her husband discovered two of the corpses in a freezer while the two were living in South Korea.
During the trial, psychiatrists testified that she suffered from a psychological condition known as "pregnancy denial."
Germany also has seen similar cases. In one, a woman was convicted of manslaughter in 2006 and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison for killing eight of her newborn babies and burying them in flower pots and a fish tank in the garden of her parents' home near the German-Polish border.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38462248/from/toolbar
Infants' corpses buried in village in northern France
Luc Moleux / Reuters
Police outside the home of a couple who was expected to appear in court Thursday after police found the corpses of eight newborn babies in their village in northern France.
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 7/29/2010 4:29:27 AM ET
Share Print Font:
A French couple was expected to appear in court Thursday after police found the corpses of eight newborn babies in a village in northern France.
A judicial official said the corpses were found in two places in Villers-au-Tertre, a village of about 700 people not far from the city of Lille.
"Two people are being held in custody. They are the mother and father of the children," public prosecutor Eric Vaillant told Reuters.
French newspaper Le Figaro reported two of the bodies had been hidden for more than 20 years.
"What is certain is that the new born babies all had the same parents. They were stuffed inside plastic bags and then buried," an unnamed detective told the U.K.'s Daily Mail.
They were being held on suspicion of concealment of a corpse and failing to report a crime, the BBC said, adding that the couple were due to appear in court Thursday.
The couple had two grown-up daughters, reportedly in their 20s, and were grandparents, a local resident told Agence France Presse.
'Wouldn't harm a fly'
One teenage girl said the couple's daughters were nice girls and described the mother as a simple, quiet woman "who wouldn't harm a fly," AFP reported.
"These are attractive, helpful, polite and courteous people," a neighbor, a man in his 50s, told the news service.
They had done nothing to suggest that they might be capable of abnormal behavior, he said. "The husband was even elected to the town council," he added.
Radio France International said the man worked in the building trade was and his wife was a nursing assistant.
Police cordoned off the house with yellow-and-black tape and the house stood with doors and windows shuttered Wednesday night. The prosecutor for the Nord region was planning a news conference Thursday.
An initial report by French radio that the mother had admitted to "systematically" killing her babies without telling her husband was later rejected by a police source, the U.K's Guardian newspaper said.
Pregnancy denial
France has seen a string of cases in recent years of mothers killing their newborns and saving and hiding the corpses.
In one case, Celine Lesage was sentenced in March to 15 years in prison after acknowledging in court that she killed six of her newborns, whose corpses were found in plastic bags in her basement in northwest France.
Another Frenchwoman, Veronique Courjault, was convicted last year of murdering three of her newborn children.
Her husband discovered two of the corpses in a freezer while the two were living in South Korea.
During the trial, psychiatrists testified that she suffered from a psychological condition known as "pregnancy denial."
Germany also has seen similar cases. In one, a woman was convicted of manslaughter in 2006 and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison for killing eight of her newborn babies and burying them in flower pots and a fish tank in the garden of her parents' home near the German-Polish border.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38462248/from/toolbar
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