Nurse, aide killed in grisly slayings in southwest France
12:30 PM
Posted: Sunday, December 19, 2004
PAU, France (AP) -- The bodies of two female hospital workers, one decapitated and the other with her throat slit, were found Saturday at a psychiatric hospital in southwest France, a local prosecutor said.
Police were questioning five people, including a recent patient said to be the main suspect, in connection with the grisly killings in the town of Pau, prosecutor Eric Maurel told The Associated Press.
The bodies of a nurse and a nurse's aide were found around daybreak Saturday in a building in the geriatric ward of the hospital, where a shattered window pointed to a possible break-in, Maurel said.
The bodies were taken to a hospital in Bordeaux, to the north, for an autopsy, and an investigation was under way, officials said.
"Everything will be done to find the person responsible for these acts," said Philippe Gregoire, the top state official in the Pyrenees-Atlantiques region.
French Health Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy traveled to Pau to meet with families of the victims.
"What happened here is unspeakable, scandalous, horrible," he told reporters.
A man who sounded drunk telephoned police overnight with "information about a violent scenario," Maurel said. The man and three others also at his home were among those taken into custody, he said.
Both women were married with children, Maurel said. Authorities would not identify the victims other than to say that one was born in 1956, the other in 1964.
Police were questioning five people, including a recent patient said to be the main suspect, in connection with the grisly killings in the town of Pau, prosecutor Eric Maurel told The Associated Press.
The bodies of a nurse and a nurse's aide were found around daybreak Saturday in a building in the geriatric ward of the hospital, where a shattered window pointed to a possible break-in, Maurel said.
The bodies were taken to a hospital in Bordeaux, to the north, for an autopsy, and an investigation was under way, officials said.
"Everything will be done to find the person responsible for these acts," said Philippe Gregoire, the top state official in the Pyrenees-Atlantiques region.
French Health Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy traveled to Pau to meet with families of the victims.
"What happened here is unspeakable, scandalous, horrible," he told reporters.
A man who sounded drunk telephoned police overnight with "information about a violent scenario," Maurel said. The man and three others also at his home were among those taken into custody, he said.
Both women were married with children, Maurel said. Authorities would not identify the victims other than to say that one was born in 1956, the other in 1964.
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