Biological Mother Indicted 10 Years After Murdering Newborn Over Fears Child Was Not Husband's

A woman in her 40s who murdered her newborn baby just two days after birth, fearing that her pregnancy resulting from an affair would be exposed to people around her, has been indicted in custody 10 years after the crime following a supplemental investigation by the prosecution.

The Tongyeong Branch of the Changwon District Prosecutors Office (led by Senior Prosecutor Han Kang-il) announced on the 19th that it has indicted a 47-year-old woman, surnamed A, on charges of murder.

According to the prosecution, A is accused of giving birth to a baby girl on January 13, 2016, during the dead of winter, and leaving her unattended in the passenger seat of her car parked on the roadside in Oesan-ri, Donghae-myeon, Goseong-gun, South Gyeongsang Province, from 5:15 PM to 6:45 PM on January 15 of the same year, two days after the birth, thereby causing her death.

It was found that she turned off the car engine and left the windows open during the crime.

At the time, the average temperature in the area of the crime scene was 5.73°C (42°F), which was confirmed to be a condition that the baby girl, born small at a weight of 2.16 kg, could hardly endure.

A initially stated to investigative authorities that she buried the deceased baby girl in the ground, but later changed her statement to claim that she abandoned her in the sea off Goseong-gun.

The body of the deceased baby girl was never found.

The investigation into A began after a local government requested an investigation, growing suspicious when a exhaustive review of temporary newborn identification numbers revealed no sign of life for the deceased baby girl.

The police applied for an arrest warrant for A in December 2024, but it was dismissed by the court on the grounds that there was no risk of flight or destruction of evidence.

The prosecution, which received the case in June of last year while A was not in custody, uncovered specific details regarding the causal relationship between A's actions and the baby's death, as well as the motive for the crime, through supplemental investigations.

Investigations showed that A had been maintaining a relationship with an extramarital lover while estranged from her husband at the time, and suspected the child was the lover's.

Fearing this fact would be discovered, A committed the crime on the very day she was discharged from the hospital after giving birth, according to the findings.

Initially, charges of abandoning the baby's body could have been applied to A, but the statute of limitations had expired.

The crime of violating the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Child Abuse Crimes was newly established in 2021, after A's crime, making its application difficult.

During the supplemental investigation, the prosecution obtained opinions from two forensic pathologists stating that there is sufficient validity to conclude the deceased baby girl died of hypothermia.

In addition, through integrated psychological analysis, authorities identified the motive as stemming from A's personality traits combined with an attempt to escape the situation of an unexpected pregnancy.

Currently, A is divorced from her husband at the time of the crime, and the extramarital lover is known to have cut off contact around the time of A's pregnancy and childbirth.

A prosecution official stated, "We will do our utmost to protect victims from violent crimes that threaten public safety, and we will do our best in maintaining the prosecution to ensure the defendant receives punishment corresponding to her crime."

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.