Nurse beheaded, another stabbed in French hospital

PAU, France - A nurse was decapitated and another stabbed to death overnight in the psychiatric hospital where they worked in this southwestern French town, a medical source said on Saturday.

The head of the decapitated nurse was found on top of a television in the geriatric ward, the source said. The second nurse had been stabbed in the neck.

"Five people are now in police custody," local prosecutor Eric Maurel later told journalists, without giving details of the deaths.

"We are investigating but we cannot say whether these persons are directly linked with the event."

Hospital workers arriving for the Saturday morning shift found the two nurses dead.

There were indications that a hospital window had been forced open, Maurel said.

- REUTERS