German police continue grim hunt

The bodies were found in flower pots and a fish tank at the house

German police holding a woman suspected of killing nine of her newborn children are continuing to search her former addresses for other corpses.

The woman, named only as Sabine H, 39, was arrested on Tuesday after the discovery in Brieskow-Finkenheerd, near the border with Poland.

Police are also reportedly searching her former flat in Eisenhuettenstadt.

She is said to have told police she could not remember how the children died as she drank heavily in labour.

The babies are believed to have been born between 1988 and 1999, fathered by the woman's former husband.

'Embarrassed'

Berliner Zeitung says she lived for several years in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder with another man who is the father of her youngest child, 18-month-old Elisabeth. Three other children - aged 18, 19 and 20 - live with her first husband.

The crime emerged after someone clearing a garage at the house in Brieskow-Finkenheerd, where her mother and sister live, found human bones stored in a fish tank, police said.

Pathologists were still trying to find out how the children died. Prosecutor Annette Bargenda told the Associated Press that the woman had admitted she had not wanted the children.

She said the woman was asked why she had not put them up for adoption and replied: "That would have been too embarrassing."