29057: Hermantin(news)N.Y. Man Kills His Children and Himself (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

N.Y. Man Kills His Children and Himself


By TOM HAYS
Associated Press Writer

August 31, 2006, 4:09 PM EDT



NEW YORK -- A father, convinced he was the victim of a voodoo curse, drowned 
his two young children in the bathtub and then jumped to his death in front of 
a subway train, police said Thursday.

Franz Bordes, 39, died at Wednesday evening at a Brooklyn subway station. 
Investigators found several suicide notes indicating he was at odds with 
relatives of the children's mother, a Haitian immigrant like Bordes.

"They're using everything they can to destroy me, most of all voodoo," one of 
the notes read, according to police.

Bordes, who was unemployed, lived with Francoise Mercier, 42, and their 
children, Sweitzer, 2, and Stephanie, 4, in an apartment on Staten Island. 
Family members told police that the father usually looked after the children 
while Mercier worked as a nurse's aide.

After Mercier learned Bordes was dead, she rushed home from work to check on 
her children, and found them in the bathtub, not breathing, police said. 
Paramedics later pronounced them dead.

One of the suicide notes was found on Bordes' body. Six more were in the home.