A German mother accused of killing nine newborn babies over a period of a decade told investigators she had been alone and too drunk to remember giving birth.
The deaths of the babies between 1988 and 1999 has been described as postwar Germany's worst series of child killings and has sparked shock and disbelief that the crime went undetected for so long.
The 39-year-old woman, identified as Sabine H. from the eastern city of Frankfurt an der Oder, told investigators all the babies were hers but could not give any precise information on the manner in which they were born and died.
"The accused woman admitted giving birth to the children but she gave only very vague indications regarding the circumstances of how the children were killed," Frankfurt an der Oder prosecutor Anette Bargenda told a news conference.
She remembered giving birth to the first two children and recalled disposing of the second child in a balcony flowerpot but could give only hazy accounts of the others.
"Regarding the dead children three to nine, she said she couldn't remember how the killings took place because when the birth contractions began she had drunk a considerable amount of alcohol," Bargenda said.
Police discovered babies' bones buried in sand and earth in flowerpots on Sunday in a village in the eastern state of Brandenburg, after a man who had been clearing a garage there found human bones stored in a fish tank.
Authorities arrested Sabine H. a day later on suspicion of killing the children between 1988 and 1999. Officials had previously said the killings had extended to 2004.
A spokesman said prosecutors had withheld some details of her statement as the investigation was continuing.