A 17 year old was found dead at his family's home on Antibes' avenue du Cap in the early hours of Wednesday, August 19, in a case Grasse's public prosecutor's office is investigating as a suspected killing by his mother.
According to police sources cited by France 3 Côte d'Azur and AFP, the boy's father called emergency services around 1am after an argument with his partner, from whom he was in the process of divorcing. He told police she had attacked their son with a knife before turning the weapon on him as well, then fled the residence. He found his son dead in his bed and was unable to communicate clearly with the responding officers, still in shock.
The 43 year old mother was later recovered from the sea by police after apparently attempting to drown herself, and was hospitalized in intensive care. She has not yet been formally questioned, pending medical clearance. The father was briefly held for questioning and later released. Investigators recovered a letter written in Polish at the scene, which they hope may help clarify the circumstances; the mother is of Polish origin.
The case echoes another Alpes-Maritimes tragedy from just weeks earlier, when a 59 year old Nice man admitted to strangling his own 17 year old son on August 3, in a killing he told investigators was intended as revenge against his estranged wife. Both cases involved teenage boys of the same age, killed by a parent amid marital separation.