Overview
- Police in Hagenbach found the 9-year-old in his father’s van after a neighbor reported childlike sounds on Monday, and doctors are now treating him for malnutrition and loss of mobility.
- Prosecutor Nicolas Heitz said officers forced the door and discovered the child naked in a fetal position on trash near excrement.
- The father is jailed on preliminary kidnapping and deprivation-of-care charges, and the partner is charged for failing to help a minor and released under supervision, with both girls now in social services care.
- The father told investigators he confined the boy in November 2024 to protect him from psychiatric placement, but the prosecutor reported no mental health record and good school performance.
- Prosecutors are probing who else knew, after friends and family were told he was institutionalized and teachers were told he had moved schools.