A CHILLING photo shows a man who allegedly killed his wife and four young children on Christmas Day fleeing the family home.

Noé Bafania, 33, was caught leaving the flat on CCTV before neighbours found five dead bodies lying in “pools of blood” with blood smeared on doors, according to French officials.

Cops arrested Bafania on December 26, and are questioning him over the murders where his wife and daughters were stabbed to death as their two youngest children – a nine-month-old baby and a four-year-old boy – were thought to have been suffocated or drowned.

The brutal bloodbath happened in the Paris commuter town of Meaux, 25 miles from the French capital on Monday at around 9pm and was first reported by the families’ neighbour.

The neighbours found the lifeless bodies after they went to check on the family after seeing blood on the handle and smeared across the front door of the flat, said Meaux prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier.

Mr Bladier went on to say Bafania was captured on CCTV leaving the home on Christmas Day before fleeing to his dad’s home and then his grandmother’s home.

He left wearing a hat with his hood up and a big coat.

When he was arrested cops reportedly found him holding a kitchen knife and said his clothes were bloody.

Bafania was taken to a local hospital under police supervision as he had a cut on his left hand, reports French outlet BFMTV.

He has refused to speak to police since being arrested in the early morning of Boxing Day over the suspected murders of his wife Béatrice, 35, and their two sons and two daughters all aged younger than 10.

Béatrice and her daughters were found with “a very large number” of stab wounds all over their bodies but the youngest pair “did not have any visible wounds on their bodies”, authorities said on Tuesday.

Bladier continued: “The prime suspect is the father, aged thirty-three, who was found on Tuesday at a house nearby, after going on the run.”

A police source on Tuesday morning said: “The flat showed no sign of breaking and entering, and the father was absent.”

Cops tracked him on CCTV and arrested him in the nearby town of Sevran at his father’s home.

Geolocation data on his phone revealed that he left the family flat at around 8.07pm on Christmas Day. 

He then went to see his father, before making his way to his grandmother in Garges-lès-Gonesse.

Neighbours told cops they heard screams and one called the police that evening.

The woman who alerted the police wanted to remain anonymous but told local media that she was close with Béatrice and had last spoken to her on Sunday around 7pm, which raised alarm bells.

Béatrice apparently told her neighbour that “she was waiting for the return of her husband”.

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The neighbour explained: “We were worried because it’s not her habit not to give me news.

“We called each other every day, [she] called me every day at 6 or 7 a.m.

“I said to myself: ‘It’s due to fatigue, it’s not serious, I’ll call in the morning.

“I call my girlfriend, I tell her: ‘Have you got any news, she tells me ‘no.’

“The shutters are down, it’s not normal, I called several times.”

This neighbour described Béatrice as being “very jovial and very kind”, adding: “she was like a sister, always there for us, she lived for her family, her children and for her husband. 

“Her children are friends with my children, they are in the same class in the same school.”

One local, Antonio, 69, said of Béatrice: “His wife was kind, she spoke to everybody”.

Another neighbour of the family, Andree, spoke to BFMTV about the horrific murders.

They described Béatrice as “so nice” and said “she talked to everyone”.

On the suspected killer, they said he was a “man whom we saw passing by very calmly, we felt that he was not comfortable in his skin, he was always calm, very slow but there was never a problem.”

Investigations into a “premeditated murder” are ongoing and autopsies will take place today.

Noé was already known to police in the area, according to local media reports.

Bladier told press on Tuesday that he had stabbed his partner in 2019.

He reportedly injured wife Béatrice in the shoulders, leaving her unable to work for at least five days.

She didn’t file a complaint but during a hearing at the time “mentioned a long-standing depressive state in her partner”.

The case was apparently dropped in January 2020 because of Bafania’s poor mental health at the time.

Bladier added that cops discovered medical documents and prescriptions for anti-depressants in the flat.

Despite his history of “domestic violence”, he had kept a clean criminal record.

While Bafania now could face life behind bars if he’s found to be the killer, he could still be deemed too mentally sick to stand trial.