Career
Her case has been referred to in the media as the "affaire des bébés congelés," or "freezer babies" case. Véronique Courjault (born in 1968 in the French department of Maine-et-Loire) is the wife of engineer Jean-Louis Courjault (born in 1966). After living in France, the couple moved to Seoul (South of Korea) in 2002, while maintaining a home in the French city of Tours.
On July 23, 2006, Jean-Louis Courjault, returning to Seoul after vacationing in France, found two infant corpses in the family freezer.
A few days later, deoxyribonucleic acid tests performed by South Korean authorities confirmed that the infants were those of the Courjaults. The case was transferred to France where new deoxyribonucleic acid 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 of 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.
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. On June 18, 2009, Véronique Courjault was found guilty of having murdered her three infants by the French court and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Swiss television (TSR) in Geneva aired an interview with American child psychiatrist Daniel Schechter, 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 May 17, 2010. She had spent almost 4 years behind bars.
