The father of children aged 5 and 7 found dead Saturday night in Beaucaire, Gard, was indicted for assassination Monday, investigators favoring the track premeditation, announced the prosecutor of Nimes. The 47-year-old father was immediately imprisoned, while the investigation continues around this tragedy that took place in a context of "marital separation", said the prosecutor of Nimes, Eric Maurel.
According to the autopsy, which took place on Monday morning, the two children, Marie, 5, and Vincent, 7, "died from asphyxiation," said the magistrate: "Forensic doctors tend to to favor a medical asphyxia, (...) without excluding that there may have been (also) asphyxiation by strangulation or suffocation ".
The father found unconscious
The father had been found unconscious Saturday night, around 22:00, in the countryside, in the town of Beaucaire, where children were schooling. He was at the side of his two children, whose death had been immediately noticed.
The first findings of technical and scientific police as well as the forensic examination on the scene of the tragedy had immediately allowed to consider a "criminal act" on the part of the father, separated from his companion, according to the first communiqué of the parquet, Sunday. According to Rémy Nougier, the mother's lawyer, "this drama should have been avoided". She reportedly filed "many handrails against her ex-companion, a dozen in two years, she was afraid," he said.