With the grim discovery this week by French police of eight newborn babies allegedly smothered to death by their mother, the BBC's Zoe Murphy asks what could lead a woman to kill her child in the first few minutes of life.

Police unearthed the remains of the eight tiny bodies at two properties in the village of Villers-au-Tertre, in northern France.

Dominique Cottrez, a 45-year-old care assistant, is said to have kept her dark secret from her husband for more than 20 years.

Mrs Cottrez will now undergo a series of psychological tests.

Prosecutors have said she was "perfectly aware" of her actions.

The court ruled unanimously that Robert Pickton, found guilty of killing and butchering six Vancouver sex workers, had received a fair trial in 2007.

He had appealed against the verdict, arguing the judge's final instructions to the jury precluded a fair trial.

The ruling suggests prosecutors will not try Pickton over an additional 20 killings of which he is accused.

The women's butchered and frozen body parts had been found in outbuildings on Pickton's property in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, prosecutors said during the trial.

The 11-month trial followed the largest serial killer investigation in Canadian history.

Prosecutors said that over a four-year period, Pickton had killed Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Georgina Papin, Marnie Frey and Brenda Wolfe.

By DENA POTTER

RICHMOND, Va. – A Virginia woman who used sex and money to persuade two men to kill her husband and her stepson to collect a $250,000 life insurance policy was scheduled Thursday to be executed in two months, which would be the first U.S. execution of a woman in five years.

A judge set a Sept. 23 execution date for Teresa Lewis, 41, the only woman on Virginia's death row. She would be the first woman executed in the state in nearly a century.

Lewis offered herself and her 16-year-old daughter for sex to two men who committed the killings. She provided money to buy the murder weapons and stood by while they shot her husband, Julian Clifton Lewis Jr., 51, and stepson Charles J. Lewis, 25, in 2002 in Pittsylvania County in south-central Virginia.

Lewis rummaged through her husband's pockets for money while he lay dying and waited nearly an hour before calling 911.

By PAUL J. WEBER

SAN ANTONIO – A 69-year-old man pulled two handguns from a briefcase and killed his stepfather, another man and a mother as the woman's children played nearby, in an upscale gated community in San Antonio, authorities said Thursday.

The gunman then shot himself, San Antonio police Sgt. Chris Benavides said. But apparently not before the children — startled by the gunfire — ran back into the house and escaped through the front door. They fled to neighbors for help.

By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN,

EDINBURG, Texas – A jury sentenced a south Texas man to death on Thursday, four days after convicting him of capital murder for beheading his common law wife's three children in 2003.

It is the second death sentence for John Allen Rubio, who was convicted of killing the children all under the age of four — smothering, stabbing and ultimately decapitating them — in a windowless Brownsville apartment.

Jurors deliberated for about four hours before returning the sentence.

Before entering the sentence, Hidalgo County District Judge Noe Gonzalez asked Rubio if there was anything he would like to say.

"I thank the jury for giving me a chance to show what I could," Rubio said quietly.

A popular evangelical pastor in Montreal with a long list of creditors — ranging from his parishioners to a zoo — had his eyes set on the lucrative diamond trade, according to a CBC investigation.

Mwinda Lezoka took steps to establish himself in the international diamond business, while he amassed as much as $1.5 million in debt at the expense of his parishioners and clients, who have now launched dozens of lawsuits against him for defaulting on loans.

During the years Lezoka ministered to his parish at the Bethel Christian Community Church in Ahuntsic, he also studied gemology, and appeared to head a Kinshasa-based export agency specialized in diamond trading.

Lezoka, 47, signed up for a weekend workshop on diamond grading in 2009 at the Montreal School of Gemology, according to the institution's president.

by Nicolas Gubert

DOUAI, France (AFP) – A French mother admitted killing eight newborn babies Thursday, investigators said, as a shocked nation struggled to digest the latest grisly tragedy of village life.

Dominique Cottrez, a nursing assistant in her forties, was charged with the murder of the babies and her husband Pierre-Marie Cottrez with failure to report a crime and illegally hiding corpses.

The mother admitted suffocating the infants and insisted her husband knew nothing about the pregnancies nor the killings, according to an official close to the investigations. She faces life imprisonment.

Her husband denied any knowledge of the deaths, the official said.

Stunned residents of the pair's quiet village of Villers-au-Tertre in northern France put flowers and candles outside the two houses where police had found the skeletal remains over the previous few days.

Prosecutors described it as the worst case of infanticide in recent French history, following a string of similar cases in which isolated and troubled mothers disposed of their newborns.

The suspects were brought before a magistrate in the nearby town of Douai to hear the charges. They were remanded in custody and prosecutors promised to hold a news conference to explain the charges.

Pierre-Marie Cottrez worked as a carpenter and was a respected member of the council in Villers-au-Tertre, a 620-strong community.

By COLLEEN LONG

NEW YORK – A single mother who died in a mysterious fire with her four children committed suicide and her teenage son's death was a homicide, the medical examiner ruled Thursday, clearing up questions about whether the boy had been responsible for the deaths.

Leisa Jones died from smoke inhalation in the mysterious blaze at her Staten Island home last week in a case briefly believed to be an accidental fire before it became a homicide investigation.

Firefighters responding early July 22 found the charred bodies of Jones and two daughters, ages 7 and 10, in a front room, and that of her 14-year-old son, C.J., slumped over a bed in a back bedroom. A 2-year-old son pulled out alive died at a hospital of smoke inhalation.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Suspected drug hitmen have kidnapped four Mexican journalists who were reporting on organized crime innorthern Mexico, the latest attempt by cartels to silence the media, a Mexican media group said on Wednesday.

The Milenio newspaper and TV network said one of its cameramen and three other journalists were abducted Monday after covering a prison scandal in the northern state of Durango in which inmates are accused of being hired guns for a local cartel.

Two cameramen from Mexico's leading broadcaster Televisa were among those kidnapped, Milenio said. Televisa and Durango state authorities declined to comment.

On Tuesday, July 27, 2010, at 10:44 a.m. two black males entered the Wachovia Bank, 2725 Clairmont Road, and announced a robbery. Robber #1 jumped the teller counter with a blue canvass bag and obtained an undisclosed amount of money from the teller stations. Robber #2, brandishing a silver semi automatic handgun, remained in the lobby of the bank and ordered customers to the ground. Both robbers departed the bank shortly thereafter without further incident.

The robbers are described as follows:

Robber #1: Black male, 20-30 years in age, wearing a short black wig, glasses and t-shirt.

Robber#2: Black male, 20-25 years in age, wearing a shoulder length wig, black in color, cammo shorts, timberlake style boots, stocky build, brandishing a silver semi auto handgun.

The robbers are believed to be traveling in a 2005 Toyota Corolla, grey in color, bearing Georgia license plate BIG-9533. This vehicle was stolen in a carjacking on 7/26/10 at 3:10 a.m. in the 4000 block of Treecrest Parkway (Crestview Apartments), Dekalb County, Georgia.

Anyone with information regarding this matter should contact the FBI Atlanta office at tel. (404) 679-9000.