A 7-year-old child was found dead in an apartment in Perpignan on the evening of Thursday September 14, 2023. The child’s father is currently in police custody.
[Updated September 15, 2023 at 7:59 p.m.] A macabre discovery for the Perpignan police officers. This Thursday, September 14, the police found the lifeless body of a child, in the bathtub of an apartment in Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales), according to L’Indépendant. The body of the little boy was discovered around 6:30 p.m., specifies BFMTV. The police were called to the scene of the tragedy. Once there, they were forced to break down the door of the apartment in order to enter, before discovering the inanimate and partially frozen body of the young child. The victim showed signs of beatings and violence. Le Parisien indicates for its part that the father declared having put the boy’s body in a freezer in order to preserve it.
A criminal investigation into “murder of a minor under 15 years of age, attempted murder, violence against minors under 15 years of age by ascendant, concealment of a corpse, forgery and use of forged documents and kidnapping” has been opened, announced the public prosecutor’s office in Perpignan. The Perpignan youth protection service and the criminal brigade of the Perpignan police station are responsible for the investigations.
The police intervened in the apartment of the Peupliers residence, in Perpignan, after being notified by the funeral directors who had been contacted by the father of the child earlier in the day. The man, aged 33, reportedly sought information on how to bury his son. It was also the victim’s death certificate sent by the father to the funeral directors which would have tipped off the company. The doctor supposed to have written the certificate thus indicated to the funeral directors that he had never completed the document in question, according to details from Le Parisien.
Still according to the Ile-de-France newspaper, the police had to use a battering ram to enter the apartment. Once in the apartment, they found the father, who was conscious but had a cable around his neck that could be that of a drill. His hands were also partly tied behind his back. He was arrested and placed in police custody, said a press release from the Perpignan public prosecutor, Jean-David Cavaillé. The man is known to the police for domestic violence, but has never been convicted.
Two girls, aged two and three and identified as the victim’s sisters, were hospitalized on the afternoon of September 14. It was their uncle who drove them to the hospital Thursday afternoon, according to BFMTV. Both had facial injuries and one of them was unconscious at the time of her hospitalization. They bear “traces of multiple trauma” according to the press release from the public prosecutor. The uncle was also taken into custody. He is 28 years old, according to Le Parisien.
The two little girls and the deceased little boy were all in the care of their father, their mother having a mental disability. An investigation into domestic violence is in progress and the judge would have considered that the man “presented guarantees with regard to educational elements” to retain custody of the children during the investigations, according to a source close to the BFMTV investigation . According to neighbors interviewed by The Independent, the family was discreet and the father is described as “a bit odd”.
