German police said Friday they had found the bodies of “probably seven” babies in an apartment in the southern state of Bavaria after being alerted by a local resident.
“Officers found several bodies of infants. The police and prosecutor… believe that there are probably seven dead,” police said in a statement.
Police are looking for a 45-year-old woman who previously lived in the apartment in the small town of Wallenfels.
“She is sought at least as the possible mother of the children,” said a police spokeswoman, who would not say if the woman is being considered a suspect.
Forensic investigators are currently examining the corpses, police said, adding that the process could take some time “due to the poor condition” of some of the bodies.
“A result is not to be expected before the beginning of the coming week,” said police.
Investigators had first revealed the grisly find late Thursday, with the local press reporting that two babies’ bodies were uncovered.
Police said they were alerted on Thursday afternoon by a resident from Wallenfels, who found a body of an infant in the apartment.
When officers arrived at the site, they uncovered several other bodies.
Newspaper Bild reported that the female former resident of the apartment lived there with her husband for 18 years, and that the couple had three children.
But the woman also had four other children from other relationships, it said, adding that she had sought to hide her frequent pregnancies.
It also quoted an unnamed source saying that the woman had four miscarriages.
She moved out at the end of September after a row with her husband, Bild said, adding that while drunk, she had told him that she had hidden bodies of babies at home.
The woman reportedly worked at a newspaper kiosk, and in the summer was also a lifeguard at a swimming pool.
A neighbour described her as a “nice person” and said that she always cared very well for her children, according to the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Germany has seen several infanticide cases in recent years.
Last May, a woman was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison for killing two of her children and hiding them in a freezer.
In October 2013, in Bavaria, the bodies of two babies from the 1980s were found during construction works.
And in the worst post-war infanticide case the country has seen, a 42-year-old woman was convicted in 2008 of killing eight of her newborn babies, whose bodies she hid in buckets, flowerpots and an old fish tank.