German police have found three dead babies in a freezer and arrested a woman believed to be the children's mother.
Police said the woman's grown-up son and daughter discovered the tiny corpses, believed to be newborns, on Saturday evening when they were looking for something to eat.
They decided to clear the freezer out as it was full of out-of-date food. It was then that they made the discovery.
The two waited for their parents to come home yesterday from a weekend in the Black Forest before confronting them.
The 44-year-old woman, her husband and their daughter arrived at a police station soon afterwards.
A police car was then sent to the house in the town of Wenden, about 100km east of Bonn.
Police discovered all three babies in plastic bags, one of which contained a newspaper dated from 1988, leading investigators to believe that at least this baby died at around that time.
The couple have two sons aged 18 and 23 and a 24-year-old daughter.
The woman has been placed under medical supervision because of her mental state and was to be questioned later today.
Autopsies will be carried out on the bodies to establish the cause of death.
Germany has witnessed numerous similar cases in recent years.
Most notable was that of Sabine Hilschenz, in eastern Germany, who killed nine of her newborn babies and hid the remains in buckets and flowerpots as well as in an old fish tank at her parents' home.
She was found guilty of eight counts of manslaughter in 2006 and is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence.
In December 2007 a 31-year-old woman was arrested after police found the bodies of five children aged between three and nine years in a house in Darry, near the northern city of Kiel.
The same week a woman was arrested in Plauen in eastern Germany on suspicion of killing three newborn babies she had given birth to.
The bodies were discovered in a trunk in the cellar, on the balcony and in the fridge.
Last November, a 35-year-old woman from Erfurt was sentenced to 12 years in jail for killing two of her babies and hiding their bodies in a freezer.
