Updated

Police say they have detained a 46-year-old woman after they found two dead babies in her apartment in a village in eastern Germany.

They said in a statement Wednesday the two infants died "quite a while ago," and that criminal acts could not be ruled out.

Police said they were tipped off Tuesday night about one dead baby, but when they searched the apartment in Benndorf in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, they found another dead infant. The bodies will undergo an autopsy to determine the cause of their deaths.

Police declined to say where they found the bodies, but several local media reported that the babies were inside a freezer and that an ex-partner of the woman tipped off police about the gruesome find.