Infant Murder Again... Woman Arrested for Burying Body of Down Syndrome Victim

Biological mothers who neglected their babies, causing their deaths and then abandoning the bodies, have been consecutively arrested. As the government continues a full investigation into some 2,000 so-called ‘ghost children’ who have birth records but no birth registration, related cases are also increasing.

The Women and Juvenile Crime Investigation Unit of the Gyeonggi Southern Provincial Police Agency announced on the 1st that they have urgently arrested and are investigating a woman in her 50s, identified as A, on charges of corpse abandonment.

A is reported to have stated that in September 2015, she gave birth in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, to a baby with Down syndrome who fell ill for several days and died, and that the body was buried in a family graveyard in a rural area.

Lee Gi-il, the 1st Vice Minister of Health and Welfare, announced measures to respond to child abuse, including a temporary newborn number management and a survey plan on the status of children, on the afternoon of the 22nd of last month at the Government Seoul Office in Jongno-gu, Seoul. The government decided to conduct a full investigation on children who have not been registered at birth.
[Photo by Yonhap News]

Police, who received an investigation request from Gwacheon City, urgently arrested A at her home around 10 p.m. the previous day. They are also investigating whether A’s husband conspired or aided in the abandonment of the infant.

Police are also continuing their investigation of a woman in her 20s, identified as B, who was arrested the previous day in Paldal-gu, Suwon City, on charges of child abuse resulting in death. B is suspected of neglecting a male infant born in Daejeon in April 2019 for three days, leading to the child’s death.

Police completed the first round of questioning of B the previous day, and it is reported that she has admitted to most of the charges. Initially, based on B’s statement that “after going out and returning home, the baby was dead, so I buried the body near the house,” police conducted a search for the body in the hillside near the villa where she lived in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon at the time.

However, B has since retracted her statement, saying she does not clearly remember the exact location where the body was abandoned, causing difficulties in the search.

Police are also verifying facts regarding a case requested for investigation by Anseong City, where a Thai national woman illegally residing in Korea gave birth in 2015 and the whereabouts of the baby are unknown. They suspect she may have taken the baby to Thailand.

According to the National Police Agency’s National Investigation Headquarters (NIS), as of 5 p.m. the previous day, the Gyeonggi Southern Provincial Police Agency is investigating 29 cases of unregistered births in its jurisdiction at the request of local governments.

Since the full investigation into unregistered births began, the police have been investigating a total of 80 cases. Nine children have been confirmed deceased, of whom five died due to murder or neglect.

Earlier, the police sent a woman in her 30s, the suspect in the ‘Suwon Refrigerator Infant Murder’ case that triggered this full investigation, to the prosecution on charges of murder and corpse concealment. She is accused of giving birth to and killing babies in November 2018 and November 2019, and storing the bodies in a refrigerator inside her apartment unit in Jangan-gu, Suwon City.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.