The little Vanille, a year old, was found in a garbage bin near Angers, after her mother confessed to having killed her, announced, at the beginning of the evening this Sunday, the public prosecutor of Angers, Eric Bouillard, at a press conference.
The mother of the little girl, Nathalie Stephan, 39, had been found alone this Sunday morning in a hotel in Nantes, which had caused the concern of the investigators. “The mother confirmed to us that she gave death to her child on Friday, even before the time at which she was to deliver it. After a long period of confidence on the part of the investigators, she agreed to tell them where she had put the body of her child, next to her home, and led the investigators to this place.“Explained Eric Bouillard.
During his police custody, still in progress this Monday morning, Nathalie Stephan, who presents significant psychiatric disorders, provided explanations “a bit fanciful“, According to the prosecutor, indicating initially to have entrusted his child to a friend, then to have killed her”by suffocation or strangulation” A modus operandi that remains to be established, as well as the motivations. “She provided very little explanation. We will try to have a little less confusion in the explanations given to us“Said the prosecutor.
Nathalie Stephan’s police custody continues for “murder on minor by ascendantUntil Tuesday morning at the latest, he added. At the end of this police custody, she could be hospitalized or placed in detention. The device “abduction alertWas lifted. “The moment when the mother gave death to her child, she places it on Friday. Friday at the very beginning of the afternoon she is indeed still accompanied by her child and from the middle of the afternoon, she is no longer“Said the prosecutor, who believes that the facts likely occurred”between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.“
Vanilla was placed in foster care
Nathalie Stephan had been staying for a year in the Angers maternal center, a home for pregnant women and single mothers. Her daughter had been placed in social care for children (ASE) and placed in a foster family by the children’s judge, but she could continue to see her mother regularly during a given time during the week.
The mother had left the home Friday at 11 a.m. and should have brought her daughter at 5:30 p.m. to her ASE representative. She had previously brought another child out of time, said the prosecutor, who described Nathalie Stephan as a woman “in great difficulty, without friendly network” The 30-year-old had also experienced a suicidal episode several months ago.
About triggering the device “Removal alert“, Eric Bouillard recognized that the fatal outcome was”inevitably a failure“But that he still allowed”very quickly find the mother and the child’s body” Regarding the 24-hour period between the non-delivery of the child and the start of the plan, the deputy of the Attorney General of the Republic of Angers Catherine Vandier explained in the morning that “the mother presented a priori no danger“Having the child”completely legally“
“By the time the people who were to pick up the child come forward, look for the child locally themselves“, that we “study all the tracks of the environment of the mom, that we check in a physical way all the places where the child would be likely, all this time passes and then we decide that it is really worryingExplained Catherine Vandier. “At no time had the mother ever endangered either of her children“, Reiterated the prosecutor this Sunday evening.
– .
