Véronique Courjault was convicted by a French jury in June 2009 of killing three of her newborn children. The births took place in secret, in three separate years: the first in the Charente-Maritime department of western France in 1999, the other two in Seoul, South Korea, in 2002 and 2003. Each followed a pregnancy that she hid from the people around her. The case came to light in Seoul in 2006, and DNA testing identified the couple as the parents.
The trial in Tours turned less on what had happened than on why. Her defense argued that she had experienced denial of pregnancy, a condition in which a woman does not recognize, or loses awareness of, her own pregnancy. Experts called to the court gave differing views of whether that applied to her. The jury convicted her and sentenced her to eight years in prison. She was released on parole in May 2010.
Courjault was a French mother of two sons. Her husband was an engineer who worked in Seoul for a car-parts company and traveled often. At the time of the 2009 trial the sons were 12 and 14. The family lived in the Charente-Maritime department when the first child was born, and in Seoul when the second and third were.
Reports from the trial describe a woman who gave the people around her no sign of anything wrong. A prosecutor argued at trial that she had managed to deceive everyone around her. Her husband told the court that he had known nothing of the pregnancies. Her lawyer, Henri Leclerc, told the court that what she had done was a crime and also a mistake.
The first birth took place in 1999 in Charente-Maritime. The woman who stood trial in 2009 admitted, after first denying everything, that she had hidden that pregnancy.
The second and third births took place in Seoul, where the family then lived. ABC News, reporting the trial, gave the dates as September 2002 and December 2003, and said she had hidden the pregnancies by wearing loose clothing. Other reports give the years only, 2002 and 2003, while an October 2006 report in the Taipei Times placed both Seoul births in 2002. The reports from the 2009 trial give 2002 and 2003.
In all three cases the pregnancy was concealed and the newborn did not survive.
In July 2006 the case came to light in Seoul. The Korea JoongAng Daily gave the date as July 23, 2006; the Korea Herald placed it in July 2006, in southern Seoul. South Korean police opened an inquiry, and Korean investigators concluded from DNA testing that the couple were the parents.
The Courjaults returned to France, and in Tours, in August 2006, they held a press conference at which they rejected the findings. The Korea JoongAng Daily gave the date of the news conference as August 22. Reuters reported in October that the couple had said they were the victims of a conspiracy linked to the husband's work.
France does not, in principle, extradite its own citizens, and the couple declined to go back to Seoul. A French inquiry followed, and the French prosecutor, Philippe Varin, announced in October 2006 that testing in France confirmed the couple as the parents.
On Tuesday, October 10, 2006, the couple were taken into custody for questioning in Tours. After two days of questioning she admitted the facts. A police source quoted by Reuters said on October 11 that she had admitted killing her two babies herself, and her lawyer said she had admitted the acts she was accused of. A report dated October 14, 2006, said that she had confessed on the Thursday of that week, and that the account included a first child, born in France in 1999.
Prosecutor Varin announced that she had been placed under formal investigation, in French practice one step short of being charged, on suspicion of murder. Her husband was placed under formal investigation for complicity in murder but was allowed to go free. His lawyer said he had not known of the killings, and that he was overwhelmed and said only that he loved his wife. Her account was that her husband did not know of the pregnancies, that she had hidden them, and that she gained little visible weight and he traveled often.
The investigation against her husband did not lead to a trial. Reports at the time of the 2009 trial say that police first suspected him of complicity but that he was cleared because no one had noticed signs of the pregnancies. One report says he was never charged. At the trial he supported his wife throughout and told the court that she had serious problems and needed help. After the verdict he said the sentence would allow the family to rebuild.
Courjault was tried in June 2009 before the Cour d'assises d'Indre-et-Loire in Tours. The trial lasted eight days. She was 41 and was charged with the murder of three newborn children, a charge the press described as triple infanticide. She faced a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. The jury had nine members.
In court she did not dispute that she had killed the children. On June 17, 2009, RTBF reported, she said in tears, "I killed my children." She told the court that she had been aware of being pregnant but that at some point the awareness had gone, and she said that she had not been expecting babies. In another account of the trial she said, "I am aware that I killed my children and that will stay with me forever."
She said that she had understood what she had done after watching a television program on denial of pregnancy, in which a mother held her child, and that she had realized the babies could have grown up.
The central dispute was her mental state. The press reported the expert testimony in different terms.
The day before, RTBF reported, the court-appointed psychiatric experts had concluded that she did not suffer from denial of pregnancy, either total or partial. CBS reported, by contrast, that psychiatrists testified that she suffered from "pregnancy denial", a psychological condition, and the Deccan Herald reported that experts described her actions as stemming from denial of pregnancy, which they called a neurosis. A report dated June 19, 2009, said that the psychiatrists agreed that she had serious mental problems linked to motherhood but disagreed about how aware she had been of her actions, and that she could not clearly describe her state of mind during the pregnancies. The Irish Examiner described the experts as a panel who testified on "pregnancy denial" as a condition in which a woman is unaware that she is pregnant.
The prosecutor, Philippe Varin, argued that she was not mentally ill, because she had managed to "fool her entire entourage," while saying that questions remained unanswered. An Italian wire report of June 18, 2009, quoted him as saying that she had acted coldly and had not wanted a large family. The defense, led by Henri Leclerc, called her acts a crime and a mistake and did not accept the prosecutor's picture of a calculating woman.
The prosecutor asked for ten years in prison, a request that the Italian wire report described as lighter than the gravity of the charges, since mitigating circumstances were allowed for. On Thursday, June 18, 2009, after more than eight hours of deliberation at the end of an eight-day trial, the jury convicted Courjault and sentenced her to eight years' imprisonment, in the words of CBS, for murdering three of her newborn children. She had already spent about three years in pre-trial detention, according to the Irish Examiner. Her husband said the sentence would let the family rebuild.
No appeal is on record.
Courjault was released on conditional release (libération conditionnelle) on Monday, May 17, 2010, the legal news site Documentissime reported. She was said to have served about half of her sentence, with the time in pre-trial detention counted. Her release was subject to conditions: she was not to communicate with the press, and she was to continue psychiatric treatment. Her lawyer, Henri Leclerc, described conditional release as a normal procedure with the usual delays. Some people saw the release as early given the gravity of the offenses, and her husband said he welcomed it with relief.
A 2011 report in the Korea Times said she had left prison "last May." Her present home is not on record.
Her husband wrote a book about his wife, published in France in September 2010 under a title that translates as "I Could Not Abandon Her." A Korean edition followed. In June 2011 the Korea Times quoted him as saying that his wife was not a cruel person, that she had suffered from a syndrome of pregnancy denial, and that she had not known she was pregnant, mistaking the pregnancy for weight gain.
The main dispute concerns her mental state: the psychiatric experts did not give one account of her awareness during the pregnancies. The years of the Seoul births also vary, between an October 2006 report that places both in 2002 and the trial reports that give 2002 and 2003.
The press agreed that the three newborns were her own and that she admitted the facts. No other deaths are on record against her. The press described the charge as murder of three newborns and as triple infanticide; the article of the French penal code on which the counts rested is not on record.
1999: first child born in Charente-Maritime, France.
September 2002: second child born in Seoul (month per ABC News).
December 2003: third child born in Seoul (month per ABC News).
July 2006: the case comes to light in Seoul; South Korean police open an inquiry.
August 2006: the couple deny the findings at a press conference in Tours.
October 10, 2006: the couple are held for questioning in Tours.
October 2006: she admits the facts; she is placed under formal investigation for murder; her husband is placed under formal investigation for complicity in murder and released.
June 2009: eight-day trial before the Cour d'assises d'Indre-et-Loire in Tours.
June 18, 2009: convicted; sentenced to eight years.
May 17, 2010: released on parole.
September 2010: her husband's book published in France.