Mother charged with murder of her five children

A woman has today been charged with the murder of her five children in Belgium.

Police and are trying to discover what led the woman to kill her children and attempt suicide in a family drama that has shocked the country.

“The reasons are not yet clear,” Bernard Goethals, the deputy prosecutor said.

He told reporters that the mother, Genevieve Lhermitte, was charged while in hospital, recovering from the attempted suicide.

Four girls and a boy, aged between four and 14, were stabbed with a knife during the afternoon break from school yesterday before the woman tried to kill herself and called emergency services.

The mother left a note which was taped to the front door of her house in Nivelles, 20 miles south of Brussels in an apparent cry for help.

Nivelles Mayor Pierre Huart said she also wrote what appeared to be a suicide letter in which she said she wanted to kill her children.

The letter is being studied by specialists to discover clues to the mother’s state of mind and motives.

“According to the letter, she found herself in an inextricable psychological situation,” Goethals said.

“What happened seems to have been done with a lot of planning.”

Police said they had questioned the mother at the hospital today, while locals placed flowers and cards outside the house where the family drama took place.

The local prosecutors office identified the mother as Genevieve Lhermitte (aged 45) who is married to a man eight years her junior. He was away on a business trip to Morocco when the killings took place.

The murders dominated front pages of most Belgian dailies. “Why?” headlined Het Nieuwsblad.

Huart said the local community was in shock and said schoolchildren where the five victims went to school were receiving special support and counselling.