A MUM and her four young children, including a nine-month-old baby, were found dead on Christmas Day in a flat near Paris.
Officers have arrested a 33-year-old father who was believed to be “on the run” as part of an investigation into a Boxing Day murder.
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The police (pictured outside the apartment) arrested the father on Boxing DayCredit: EPA
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People leave flowers in front of the apartment
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Murdered family found in their home on Christmas DayCredit: RMC
The family was found on the outskirts of the city of Meaux, 25 miles from the French capital, on Monday around 9 p.m.
The youngest child was only nine months old, and the oldest was ten years old.
The mother and her two older daughters, aged ten and seven, were found with “a very large number” of stab wounds all over their bodies, police said on Tuesday.
The two youngest children, a 4-year-old boy and a 9-month-old baby, “had no visible wounds on their bodies.”
Local prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier told a news conference on Tuesday that the youngest children are believed to have died “by suffocation or possible drowning”.
He described a “very violent crime scene” at the family home with “pools and pools of blood,” according to local reports.
Bladier said: “The main suspect is the father, aged thirty-three, who was found on Tuesday in a nearby house, after running away.”
There were no signs of a break-in at their apartment, and the father was not there when the victims were found.
Initial reports said he fled after the murders, but police arrested him Tuesday morning in the nearby town of Sevran at his father’s house.
He was already known to police in the area, according to local media reports.
Geolocation data on his phone revealed the man had left the family flat at around 8.07pm on Christmas Day.
Then he went to nearby Sevran to his father, and to his grandmother in Garges-lès-Gonesse.
French authorities have not yet named a suspect or any of the victims.
A police source said Tuesday morning that “there were no signs of break-in and entry in the apartment, and the father was away.”
It was a neighbor who allegedly alerted police to the horrors on Christmas Day after not hearing from his mother for several days.
The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told local media that they were close and that she last spoke to her on Sunday around 7 p.m.
The mother allegedly told the neighbor that she was “waiting for her husband to return”.
She explained: “We were worried because she was not in the habit of not telling me the news.
“We called each other every day, [she] he called me every day at 6 or 7 in the morning”
“I said to myself: ‘It’s because I’m tired, it’s not serious, I’ll call you in the morning.
“I call the girl, I tell her: ‘Do you have any news,’ she says ‘no’.
– The blinds are down, it’s not normal, I called several times.
A neighbor lived opposite and went to the family’s flat on Christmas Day to check as they saw “blood on the doorknob and in front of the door”.
“I had to call the police and they came. They said there was blood everywhere,” she said.
This neighbor described the mother as “very cheerful and very kind”, adding: “She was like a sister, she was always there for us, she lived for her family, her children and her husband.
“Her children are friends of my children, they go to the same class at the same school.”
Another neighbor of the family, Andree, spoke to BFMTV about the horrific murders.
She described her mother as “so nice” and said she “talked to everyone.”
She said of her father that he was “a man we saw passing by very calmly, we felt that he was not comfortable in his own skin, he was always calm, very slow, but there was never a problem”.
Prosecutor Bladier confirmed that a murder investigation was opened after five bodies were found lying in their family home.
An investigation into “premeditated murder” is ongoing and an autopsy will take place on Wednesday.
According to reports, the family lived near the square Adam-de-la-Halle in Seine-et-Marne, Meaux.
Local media said Tuesday morning that the family’s bodies were still in the apartment.
At least a dozen police officers were reportedly on the scene inside and around the building.
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The victims were discovered around 9pm on MondayCredit: EPA
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French police spoke to a woman outside a flat on Boxing DayCredit: EPA
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