Police detain French ex-cop suspected of killing mothers of his children

Cedric Prizzon, a onetime member of the Paris police, is also a former rugby international and 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 convicted of harassing his former partner, after he illegally took their son to Spain for several weeks in 2021.

Portuguese police said they had found "two bodies buried... in an isolated place" late on Wednesday, a day after stopping 42-year-old Prizzon in a car near Meda in the north of the country with his two children, a boy of 12 and an 18-month-old baby girl.

Officers found a pump action shotgun, fake documents and number plates, and €17,000 in cash in the vehicle.

Portuguese police said the two bodies they found were of the "partner and ex-partner" of the suspect, but that "procedures to identify the victims and consolidate the evidence are ongoing".

The two children are to be returned to France, authorities said.

French police have been hunting Prizzon since the women disappeared from their homes in the Aveyron area of south central France last week.

The manhunt for the powerfully-built prop forward and former French junior international began after his former partner disappeared on Friday.

The 40-year-old did not show up for work in an insurance company and her son was not at school.

Prizzon, his new partner, aged 26, and their baby daughter were also missing from their home in the nearby village of Savignac.

Detectives quickly suspected that Prizzon was behind the abductions.

As part of his bitter battle against his ex-partner over their son, Prizzon had mounted a campaign against her on social media, accusing her of endangering their son in local media.

He also took part in protests along with other fathers who had lost custody of their children.

Locals in the two villages where the women lived were horrified by their deaths.

One woman in her sixties told AFP that although she thought Prizzon was "unhinged", she "thought he would never go so far".