Murder!

[Brian Ellis]

One can't help to feel it, even though I haven't lived there for 13 years, but I did live and work there for nearly 30 years. My daughter still lives there.

Scene: small village in Switzerland, near Lausanne, 3000 inhabitants, very communal, everyone knows everyone.

Facts: On Friday, bloke comes home from work to find 9-y.o. daughter murdered and wife, in 40s, having topped herself. The cops have released no names nor MO of deaths, They lived in an apartment just 100 m from where we lived, but it was built after we left. Couple also had a 14-y.o. kid who was away at a summer camp at the time. The wife had recently had psychiatric treatment. Cops have ruled out any third party involved.

I think they were relative newcomers to the village, so I probably wouldn't have known them, but the village is shattered.

Even worse, there was a case in 2007 of a mother having murdered her (sub-normal?) kid and was sentenced to 14 years for the bother.

[Dr Mordrid]

Women offing their kids is, unfortunately, not that rare. Sometimes it's post-partum psychosis like Andrea Yates, and sometimes just plain homicide like Casey Anthony (who was acquitted because of a mishandled prosecution.) Before I retired our hospital had cases where mothers microwaved, baked, boiled or skinned their kids alive.

Never could wrap my head around some of these cases, or forget the images in my brain.

[Brian Ellis]

It was even closer to home than I thought. My daughter has a language school and she had both husband and wife as students learning English. She just told me that the wife was "a very nice girl" in an SMS (she is currently away from the village on holiday in Malta).

Some small bits of info are coming out. She worked 20% for a wood merchant but practised reflexology in her own consulting room. She was well liked by all who knew her and her boss found her professionally very good onto the bargain. She was quite good-looking, too, according to a photo I have seen. Her family name hasn't been released, the press calls her Caterina M. and the murdered daughter was Liza M. The husband, Hervé M., works in an electrical enterprise. An ordinary middle-class family.

She had a session with her psychiatrist the day before and had complained of "burn-out". A leading psy has stated that she was probably in a very depressive state and such cases decided to act very rapidly, probably in a matter of minutes. Killing her daughter was probably because she did not wish to be separated from her. It was lucky the elder child was away, as she would have been killed, too.

A very sad story!

[Dr Mordrid]

Sounds like it's been simmering for a while and she suffered a psychotic break. 10:1 she was bipolar.

[Elie]

That sucks man!!