Advertisement ::

Enlarge Cartoon

Romanel-sur-Morges, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A 36-year-old mother last Wednesday drowned her six-year-old son and then tried to kill herself by taking medicines, police announced Tuesday. School system social services alerted police Thursday afternoon that they had had no news of the child since Tuesday and police immediately went to the mother’s apartment where they found her suffering from an overdose and the boy laid out on his bed. She was rushed to the Chuv (University hospitals) in Lausanne.

Families of children at the boy’s school were alerted to the events in a letter from the school’s director. Schoolmates and their families are being offered counseling services.

Friday, the mother was able to give police a detailed description of what happened. She drowned her son in the bath late in the afternoon, then carried him to his bed. She then attempted to take her own life. Police do not mention the whereabouts of the boy’s father, but the parents had recently begun divorce proceedings. The mother has been place under preventive arrest and a judicial inquiry has been opened.

• Press release, Vaud Police Department
• RSR points out that infanticide is extremely rare in Switzerland. The site provides links to archives about a 2002 incident in Valais where a mother tried to kill her four children, but succeeded only in drowning the youngest, age 5.