A case involving four members of the same family who were found dead on Wednesday night in the town of Gy, in the Hauts-Saône region, has shocked France.
Among the victims are two children, aged 6 and 10, their 42-year-old father, and the 74-year-old mother of his estranged wife.
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Shortly before 8:00 p.m., authorities received a phone call from a relative of the 42-year-old. The man had previously contacted him and reportedly stated that he had killed his two children and the mother of his wife, with whom he was in the process of divorcing. He also said he intended to take his own life, according to BFMTV.
When authorities arrived at the scene, they found the bodies of the two children inside a car. The 42-year-old man and the 74-year-old woman were found dead in a nearby trailer. According to initial reports, all had been shot to death.
According to a relative of the 42-year-old who spoke to the newspaper L’Est Républicain, the man allegedly carried out the act just as his mother-in-law had arrived to pick up the children.
According to the relative who spoke to AFP, the 42-year-old’s wife had reportedly decided to leave him after discovering he had been unfaithful a few months earlier.
“He filmed the scene and sent it to his wife, telling her, ‘This is what you deserve,’” before forwarding the footage to his brothers, he said.
The two appeared to have reconciled, as they had vacationed together in Greece over the summer. On Wednesday, however, the woman reportedly asked her mother to go pick up the children, telling her, “I don’t want to go back there again.”
“What happened is horrific. I heard gunshots,” a local resident told the newspaper L’Est Républicain. She said she had seen the family’s eldest son taking out the trash on his scooter just 30 minutes before the incident.
The mayor of the town, Alexandre Lacroix, visited the scene that same evening and, in a statement, expressed his condolences to the family and residents. “This tragedy has plunged our municipality into deep sorrow and has naturally stirred great emotion in all of us,” he said, adding that this particular date “will remain etched in the memory and history of our community.”
Authorities are conducting an investigation to determine the circumstances under which the incident occurred.
