Portuguese police have arrested a former French police officer suspected of killing his partner and his ex-girlfriend after kidnapping them and their children.
Cedric Prizzon, a one-time member of the Paris police and a former rugby league youth international, is also a fathers’ rights activist who had been involved in a bitter public custody battle with his former partner.
He had been stripped of his custody rights and had already been already convicted of harassing his former partner, after he illegally took their son to Spain for several weeks in 2021.
Portuguese police said they found “two bodies buried… in an isolated place” late Wednesday, a day after stopping the 42-year-old Prizzon in a car near Meda in the north of the country with his two children, a 12-year-old boy oand an 18-month-old baby girl.
Officers found a pump-action shotgun, fake documents and number plates, and about $20,000 in cash in the vehicle, the National Republican Guard (GNR) said in a statement on social media, which included a photo of the seized items.
Portuguese police said that the two found bodies were of the “partner and ex-partner” of the suspect, but that “procedures to identify the victims and consolidate the evidence are ongoing.” The High Council for the Judiciary on Thursday identified the victims as Audry Cavalier and Angela Cadillac, the Reuters news agency reported.
A court in Vila Nova de Foz Coa, not far from where Prizzon was detained, remanded him in custody on Thursday evening after several hours of questioning.
He is suspected of aggravated homicide, desecrating a corpse and kidnapping, judicial officials said.
The two children are to be returned to France, authorities said.
A judge prohibited Prizzon from contacting the two children, “including telephone, social media, email, written messages, or through third parties,” Reuters reported.