A 16-year-old Corsican youth killed his parents and 10-year-old twin brothers with a shotgun as they lay asleep, media reports on the French island said Thursday. They said the 16-year-old had told police after giving himself up that he remembered nothing of the shootings, which wiped out the entire family in their detached home in Albitreccia village 30 kilometres east of the island's capital, Ajaccio.
It was not immediately clear what had led the teenager to carry out the killings - apparently in cold blood - during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday, the reports said. They said the family had lived quietly, with the parents working in business at a nearby resort. The teenager had no record of being in trouble with the police.
The reports said the teenager had apparently left the shotgun near his parents' house and wandered aimlessly around the resort of Porticcio before visiting his uncle and saying what he had done. The uncle had then taken him to the police at one in the morning, saying: "The boy has killed his family." The teenager was due initially to appear before an examining magistrate.
The family tragedy brought to 20 the number of people murdered on Corsica since the beginning of the year after 21 were killed last year on an island known for scores to be settled by use of arms. The Prefect of Corsica Paul Michel, recently warned that this year could prove even bloodier than last. Some 4,500 residents of the island possess a weapons licence compared with just 1,200 in Paris.