Frenchwoman who killed eight of her own babies freed Published duration 2 August 2012

image caption Dominique Cottrez is seen here in an undated image from Facebook

Dominique Cottrez, the Frenchwoman who confessed in 2010 to killing eight of her own newborn babies, has been freed under supervision, French media report.

She was released untagged by an appeals court in the northern town of Douai on condition she continued to receive psychological and psychiatric care.

Mrs Cottrez had been in custody since July 2010, when remains were found in the garden of her parents' home.

She was awaiting trial on eight charges of voluntary homicide.

It was not immediately clear on what grounds she had been released.

While she admitted killing her eight newborn babies between 1989 and 2006, in the village of Villers-au-Tertre near Lille, she said her husband had known nothing about them. He has not been charged.

She told an examining magistrate she had been a victim of incest and feared that her own father, who died in 2007, had fathered the babies, Le Figaro newspaper reports.

Mrs Cottrez, who is in her late forties, reportedly managed to conceal the pregnancies because of her obesity.

Two sets of remains were found in the parents' house, wrapped in plastic bags.

The other six bodies were found in the garage of a second house in the village wrapped in hermetically sealed plastic bags, hidden under a variety of objects.