Véronique Courjault (born Fièvre; 1968) is a French citizen who confessed to having killed three of her babies, two of whom she stored in a freezer at her home. Her case has been referred to in the media as the ''"affaire des bébés congelés,"'' or "''frozen babies case''".

The Courjault family

Véronique Courjault (born in 1968 in the French department of

Maine-et-Loire Maine-et-Loire () is a department in the Loire Valley in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France. It is named after the two rivers, Maine and the Loire. It borders Mayenne and Sarthe to the north, Loire-Atlantique to the west, Indre-e ...

) is the wife of engineer Jean-Louis Courjault (born in 1966). After their marriage in 1994, they were known to have had two sons born in 1995 and 1997. After living in France, the couple moved to

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

in 2002, while maintaining a home in the French city of

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 ...

Chronology of events

On 23 July 2006, Jean-Louis Courjault, returning to

after vacationing in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, found two infant corpses in the family freezer. A few days later, DNA tests performed by South Korean authorities confirmed that the infants were those of the Courjaults. On 22 August 2006, Jean-Louis and Véronique Courjault held a press-conference during which the couple contested the DNA results and called the media "a lynch mob" that was in conspiracy with commercial rivals of Jean-Louis Courjault. The case was transferred to France where new DNA tests were ordered. On October 12, 2006, Véronique Courjault admitted to killing both infants and freezing their remains after she gave birth to them in 2002 and 2003 in South Korea. She also confessed to killing a third infant and burning its body in a fireplace in 1999 while the couple still lived in France.Article du Figaro du 9/6/2009
/ref> In January 2009, the case against Jean-Louis Courjault was dismissed. He stated publicly that he had never been aware of his wife's pregnancies and that she had in fact kept them secret by wearing loose clothing and through a process referred to as

denial of pregnancy Denial of pregnancy (also called pregnancy denial) is a form of denial exhibited by women to either the fact or the implications of their own pregnancy. One study found that women who denied their pregnancy represented 0.26% of all deliveries. A ...

. On 18 June 2009, Véronique Courjault was found guilty of having murdered her three infants by the French court and was sentenced to eight years in prison. A large debate in the Francophone press emerged over the summer of 2009 concerning the basis for Courjault's denial of the three pregnancies and whether she had deliberately deceived her husband with the intention of murdering the infants. Swiss television (TSR) in Geneva aired an interview with American child psychiatrist

Daniel Schechter Daniel S. Schechter (born 1962 in Miami, Florida) is an American psychiatrist known for his clinical work and research on intergenerational transmission or "communication" of violent trauma and related psychopathology involving parents and very ...

, a specialist in the diagnosis and treatment of peripartum psychopathology. Schechter described "denial of pregnancy" as a serious symptom of a psychiatric disturbance that can have several possible etiologies. Véronique Courjault was released from jail on 17 May 2010. She had spent almost four years behind bars.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Courjault, Veronique 1968 births French female serial killers French murderers of children Living people People from Maine-et-Loire

The Courjault family

Chronology of events

See also

References