German mother charged with murder of 5 children

A German 27-year-old mother of 5 has been charged to court for murdering her five young children whose dead bodied were found at the family’s home near Cologne.

Heribert Kaune-Gebhardt, a prosecutor in nearby Wuppertal said the autopsies on the children — three girls, aged 1, 2, and 3 and two boys, aged 6 and 8 — showed signs of sedation and suffocation, though the exact manner of their deaths remains unclear.

According to Wuppertal police’s Marcel Maierhofer who is leading the homicide investigation, the children’s bodies were found at their home in Solingen, about 22 miles north of Cologne, and there were no signs of physical violence,

The suspect, whose name has not been released, has not yet been questioned by authorities, though she attempted to take her own life by jumping in front of a train at the railway station in Düsseldorf, about 19 miles west of Solingen.

She sustained serious injuries that were not deemed life-threatening.

Referencing problems with her 28-year-old husband, with whom she shared the four youngest children, the suspect told her mother she “couldn’t go on.”

As a result, Maierhofer pointed to the “broken marriage” as the underlying reason for the suspect’s motive, noting, “The couple had lived separately for a year.”