The mother of the 2 children found dead on the banks of the Adour in Bayonne was the subject of a psychiatric examination. The doctors maintain his internment.
The 41-year-old woman suspected of killing her 6-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter was examined by psychiatrists on Sunday. According to the Bayonne public prosecutor’s office, the doctor has not commented on his responsibility but he maintains his internment in a psychiatric hospital. The compulsory hospitalization of the school teacher, resident of Cambo-les-Bains, was taken on the decision of the mayor of Bayonne, Jean-René Etchegaray.
During the night from Friday to Saturday, the bodies of her two children were recovered from the banks of L’Adour in Bayonne. “The mother was found naked on the other side of the river in a delusional state and was hospitalized,” said Samuel Vuelta-Simon, the public prosecutor of Bayonne.
According to the first hypotheses of the investigation, she would have immersed herself with her children before the force of the current carried them away. Witnesses have indeed reported a person wandering in the water course and making incoherent comments. The 40-year-old’s car was parked not far from where the children were found. Only the autopsy of the children will be able to confirm the drowning.
The mother suffers from bipolar disorder
“The 41-year-old mother suffers from a pathology with bipolar disorder. She has already experienced delusional episodes, especially on the public highway in Cambo-les-Bains (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), where the family resides, ”said the public prosecutor.
It was her husband and father of the children who alerted the gendarmes. When traveling for work, he could not reach his wife. At home, the police did not find anyone. They then geolocated the 40-year-old’s phone, and made this macabre discovery.
For now, the woman has not yet been able to be heard. She was hospitalized in psychiatry in Bayonne. The father of the family was taken care of by a psychological unit, and heard as a relative and a victim.
Bipolar disorder
People suffering from this psychiatric pathology suffer from severe mood swings. They alternately experience episodes of several weeks of depression or melancholy, and pathological excitement during which they can put themselves in danger (compulsive purchases and sexuality, risky financial investments) or give in to delusions (firm beliefs but impossible) and hallucinations. This oscillation between depression and mania leaves little room for “normal” periods of life.
And although these mood swings are brutal and out of all proportion, the diagnosis of bipolar disorder is only made after 10 years of diagnostic wandering. In the absence of adequate care, these patients are therefore treated, wrongly, for chronic depression. Consequence: their risk of suicide is 30 times greater than in the general population and their life expectancy reduced by about 20 years.
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