Germany dropped all charges today against a 27-year-old mother who dumped her three children at a pizza restaurant in Italy last year, setting off an international manhunt, dpa reported. Restaurant staff in Val d'Aosta comforted and fed the children, aged 6, 4, and 10 months, until they could be picked up by welfare officials. Italian police found the mother and her runaway convict boyfriend hiding in woods near the town several days later. Prosecutors in Siegen said the finding was that the woman had been "psychologically fragile and unable to cope with caring for a family" at the time. She believed it was the lesser of two evils to abandon the children. The mother, her children and the boyfriend had driven to Italy on a whim and had run out of petrol and money. "At first glance it was a perplexing and incomprehensible thing to do," the prosecutors said. Judges agreed to close the file. The children have been put in care.
