Mourners lay flowers at site of babies' bodies find
Mourners today laid flowers and lit candles at an apartment complex in southern Austria where police found four dead babies – two stuffed in a freezer and two sealed in concrete-filled buckets.
Authorities questioned the babies’ 32-year-old mother in a bid to piece together what led to the deaths.
Police are investigating whether the woman and her longtime partner had lived anywhere other than the building on the outskirts of Graz, 120 miles south of Vienna.
The woman, whose name was not released under Austrian privacy laws, told investigators little today beyond her admission she was the mother of the children, the Austria Press Agency reported.
She referred to the infants not as children, but as “bloody lumps,” APA said.
DNA tests are under way to determine whether the partner – a 38-year-old carpenter – is the father of the children, police said. He has insisted he knew nothing about the woman’s pregnancies.
Post-mortem examinations are expected to be completed by tomorrow.
The couple appeared before a judge late on Friday, police said. The mother has not been entirely coherent during questioning, said Lt Col Werner Jud.
“The woman has not been able to say in what order the babies were born,” Jud was quoted as saying.
Authorities have been questioning neighbours, medical personnel and others who might know the couple. People who lived near their home in Graz described the woman – a bookkeeper who worked at a gas station – as a hard worker and a kind person.
