13-yr-old boy finds newborn baby's body in planter on veranda

....I have no words.....what a .....I don't know really what to say, that poor, poor baby.

messed up.

Is it just me or these horrible crimes tend to become an everyday phenomenon in Japan?

and according to a japanese article (sankei), the baby's father is not the divorced father so the mother wanted to hide it.. she gave birth in the bathroom by the way.. poor 13-year old boy he had to find a dead baby and he is old enough to know what's going on.. hope someone else will make sure he will be taken care of.

corpses seem to be piling up thats for sure. JT seems to be running a lot of horror or is it just simple reality here now. Homepage section is just loaded with death.

it was a sibling... that has gotta hurt... but...

Seems like a lot of these stories have been coming from Nishiyodogawa lately. Working class area with lots of factories. I wonder if this is a former buraku area.

I'm sorry, but explain to me why the woman is getting ONLY an abandoning the body charge? How did the baby die? and aren't their other charges that would stick as well? or is it just that this thing is becoming so very common place in Japan that they can only give her a slap on the wrist?

Sick sick sick... and I feel awfully sorry for the boy who found the corpse.

Living together and divorced. That is an unusual scenario. I wonder if the child was someone else's or the divorced living together father's?

Either way, horrible mother to expose her child to such an awful thing. She should know better no matter the circumstances for killing the baby.

smithjapan- FOR NOW, the woman is charged for abandoning the body. She has already told the police that she gave birth to the baby and hid the body right after the baby was born.. Soon she will be charged with other things as well - it doesn't mean she will be locked up for many years, though (sad).

I have to wonder, though... The couple was already divorced but still living together. She said that the baby's father isn't her ex husband and that was why she wanted to hide it.. To me, it doesn't make sense. First, if they are divorced, why did she have to hide the fact that she got pregnant? Second, who is the baby's father? Third. Didn't her ex husband know this woman was pregnant?? The baby was 48cm long which means the mother's belly had to be pretty big.. I don't know how people around her didn't even notice that he belly got small and there was no baby???

The 'abandoning a body' charge is just the first. They need to ascertain whether the baby was a stillbirth or not before they go on to murder/manslaughter, depending on whether she's considered responsible for her own actions.

I think helping the 13-year-old get over the trauma takes priority over charging the mother. She can be castigated at leisure, the boy needs help now. Poor lamb.

fishy -

Some women, especially if they're large to start off with, can hide a pregnancy to term pretty well. On others, the Bump is obvious from the early stages.

cleo - you are right.. some women can hide it well, but still, just to think that she wasn't living alone and no one even noticed.. this is just wrong... so wrong. and i agree 100% with what you said about the priority is to take care of the 13-year old boy get over this terrible trauma as i had also mentioned in my earlier post. I cant even imagine what he's going through right now.

How about murder as well, another in family murderer gets away with nothing.

This woman won't be getting away with anything. As somebody earlier pointed out, "abandoning a body" gives the police enough leverage to get the woman down the cells, for days on end if necessary. Meanwhile, a postmortem will be conducted on the remains to determine if the baby was stillborn or alive. If the child was alive, then the cops have another piece of bamboo to put under the woman's fingernails.

@fishy: You would be amazed how well women are able to hide a pregnancy. Happens all the time. Some baggy clothes and bingo, no one knows about the pregnancy. As they were divorced, I doubt the ex took particular notice of various subtle changes that go along with a pregnancy.

There could be several reasons that she didn't want to reveal she had a baby, that maybe she was pregnant while still married to her then husband and only recently got a divorce. In living conditions of staying under the same roof with her ex-husband, it is possible that they have been avoiding each other while home, not knowing what the other is doing. She could have gotten away with this crime by disposing of the baby somewhere else, maybe flushing it down the toilet like how some young teenage girls have done at the internet cafes, or thrown it in the trash bin down the street.

don't think I have words ...just makes me ill.

she gave birth to the child in January and buried it

I hope it was stillborn. I'd hate to think she killed it and then buried it..

This poor kid is gonna have a pretty messed up life. Teenage years are hard enough as it is..

JT - according to japanese article, it was the boy who called the police, not the mother. he found the dead baby while he was home alone and cleaning the balcony.

Moderator: It has now been corrected.

Where is the love?

JT seems to be running a lot of horror or is it just simple reality here now.

No kidding. Casual visitors to this site probably think Futenma and infanticide are the main issues of the day. Day in, day out, the headlines on the left are (a) murder story, (b) futenma update.

Freaky and scary story. I am sad for the 13 yr. old boy because he saw his half brother sticking out of the ground. The mother should be sterilized, the sad part about it, where will the 13 boy go ? His divorced a hole father, foster parents, boarding school, or grand parents. Where will this kid stay and recover from a murdering mother ?

well that is a terrible place to put a baby

she gave birth to the child in January and buried it

This is an extremely disturbing sentence. I'm gonna try and have some lunch now.

Okay. I have gathered my thoughts and now am even more sickened. It's likely that the reason that this woman buried her baby was because he/she was born out of wedlock. If she had kept the baby, she would have list him/her as illegitimate on the family registry. In other words, she chose to get rid of the baby rather than face the shame of having a fatherless child. Does anyone else feel that this may be the case?

In other words, she chose to get rid of the baby rather than face the shame of having a fatherless child. Does anyone else feel that this may be the case?

Perhaps, but why wasn't abortion an option for this lady? (Cetainly it wasn't any qualms with the morality of abortion, in light of her being able to bury a newborn in a planter.) It's one thing for a highschooler to abandon a baby due to ignorance/inability to get an abortion but for a grown woman to forgo that option in favor of stifling her own pregnancy, where discarding the baby amounts to little more than concealing evidence? Doesn't make sense.

She could have faked calling the cops, and taken the remains somewhere else.

Let's not turn thsi into an abortion debate, but not giving care to a newborn infant in my book is murder. Burying it in a planter on your veranda like cow maneure is EVIL, no matter what your circumstances are. Burn in hell lady. Poor 13 year old, must be traumatized.

I suppose when a place is so densely populated, the value of each person's life decreases in the minds of the people.

dolphingirl said: It's likely that the reason that this woman buried her baby was because he/she was born out of wedlock.

Well, that is a reason. But I think if we go deeper there are questions of financial support and what happens to a woman when the man she lives with finds out its not his kid. The fact that they are already divorced certainly adds a extra twist, as does the fact that she already has a 13 year old to take care of.

One certainly has to wonder why she did not get an abortion, but she is not the only woman in the world who could be termed "indecisive". It changes things a lot if the baby was stillborn, but we don't know yet.

While everyone is busy condemning the mother, I would like to take a moment to point that it is very easy for a man to prevent pregnancies, but some guy out there failed and it did not seem like he wanted a baby. So let's consider his very large part in all this. The mother was left in a hard position between two men and two children and a world that is really down on female sexuality. She will be branded and labeled for getting pregnant by another man despite the fact that the man has more options and more control over preventing pregnancy.

She will be branded and labeled for getting pregnant

Not really, I am more upset at her for murdering a baby. Even if the world is tough on you, you do not bury a corpse where you other child (who was probably already tramatized enough living whith two already dicvorced parents) can find it.

13 is young, but old enough to find bodies in planters. The mother should not have called the police.

While everyone is busy condemning the mother, I would like to take a moment to point that it is very easy for a man to prevent pregnancies, but some guy out there failed and it did not seem like he wanted a baby. So let's consider his very large part in all this

Assuming that she told the father (or even know who he is for that matter).

I just remembered a scene in Harry Potter. Those crying plants. Sorry to mention it, but that is not supposed to be for real.

The emotional detachment some people have for their own kids is scary sometimes.

the latest news report another infant body recovered from the same planter. please update the article...

HeyLars said,

While everyone is busy condemning the mother, I would like to take a moment to point that it is very easy for a man to prevent pregnancies, but some guy out there failed and it did not seem like he wanted a baby.

Contraceptive methods (birth control methods) are not 100% foul proof. Abstinence is the only 100% foul proof for not getting pregnant.

This case is a social issues that needs to be addressed. If it isn't going to be addressed then this will continues to happen. Don't be shock if there is another story tomorrow or next week about a baby, a toddler, or a child death. These cases can be preventive if local and state government have programs for intervention to protect the child welfare first.

not murder?

geez.. ANOTHER dead baby from the same balcony.. according to the updated J-news, this mother delivered a baby about 2 years ago in the bathroom and then buried the body in the planter, this time in January, she did exactly the same thing. Her excuse was that she didn't want the husband (now ex husband) and her son to find out about her pregnancy so she buried the babies.

How did she keep the pregnancy secret for nine months?

Nice job by the 13 year old to call the cops when the mother was out. He knew what was up. Hopefully he'll learn how NOT to be like his parents.

She should have had compassion for her newborn and aborted him in utero.

The charge of abandoning a body is easy to prove since they have the remains. If they charge her with murder the police will have to get off their butts and do some investigating to make a case - and that takes a professional desire to do one's job!

I'll bet we see the same story again in a few years, same mother, same planter! This is disgusting but it seems to happen more and more these days!

Why the hell didn't she take the baby to one of those hospitals with a "Baby Hatch" instead of mudering her child???

Actually HeyLars I agree with you - believe it or not!

I am not for a second condoning what this woman has done - but first of all, we dont know if this was a live or a stillbirth. At 48cms (I believe one poster made) it sounds pretty much a full-term baby, so this wasnt a miscarriage. It seems like a hell of a coincidence though, given her circumstances, that the baby was also stillborn. My money would be on murder myself.

As for her situation - it is actually NOT that unusual here to continue living together even after divorce, at least for a time. And if she got pregnant by a guy who wanted nothing to do with it, she was in a very difficult situation. Abortions here are VERY expensive - and call me judgemental but these people don`t sound the rolling-in-it type.

Also of course, there are the social issues here of having a baby out of wedlock - hence the ubiquitous "dekichatta kekkon".

I condemn him for not helping her (if indeed that is the case) but if she is proven to have murdered the child, I condemn her too. I also find it very hard to believe no-one knew she was pregnant. A 48cms fetus (as another poster said) is pretty much full-term. Someone living with you couldn`t help but notice, surely? Or is the family that disfunctional?

Whatever - a chill down my spine from this new article, for sure.

skipbeat said: Contraceptive methods (birth control methods) are not 100% foul proof. Abstinence is the only 100% foul proof for not getting pregnant.

You just had to throw abstinence in there, didn't you? Condoms are 100 percent effective if used properly and if they have not been damaged. And if you don't believe me, go ahead and use spermicide with a condom and use the pullout method too, all three at the same time and you can have 150 percent effective! I am telling you, pregnancy is easy for any man or any trained monkey to prevent, therefore, the pregnancy is mostly the fault of the father. Therefore, his responsibility is huge. The only mitigating factor is if the mother hid knowledge of the pregnancy from him. But still, he could, and probably should have exercised all the power men have to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Either he didn't or he meant to get her pregnant.

This has happened twice?! My God. Whether the baby was stillborn or murder(and I find it hard to believe that both babies were stillborn), this is disgusting behavior on behalf of the mother.

Yes, abortions here are quite expensive (at least) 100,000yen but surely this woman had some other options. Surely she has friends, a sister a mother who could help her out or lend her money. Or worse case the scenario, have the baby and leave it at a hatch or at a hospital.

To go through the pregnancy and give birth only to dump her baby like a piece of trash...she obviously has no respect at all for human life. Not to mention the trauma her other child had to go through finding the body of his dead sister or brother. Good on him for calling the police. Hopefully he will grow up with more sense than his mother.

Not sure if this has been posted, but I take it that both the boy and ex husband "don't know nuthin' about birthn' no babie." How can they not see a woman grow in size, particually in one area and not be suspicious? Then to one day go down and not notice that the womand did not go to a hospital to give birth. Even at that age I knew what pregnancy was and how it happend.

For two months neither the kid or the man made any comment on where the baby was. The events the woman did are tragic, but I think it is just as tragic on the part of the ex husband too.

Poor 13 yr old...probably scar him for life.....why didnt she use the baby box at hospitals??

How did the husband and child not know she was pregnant?

People amaze me with their stupidity these days.

Perhaps the husband knew and made her destroy the baby? Could be why they are devorced but still living together. They could have also told the son the baby was adopted.

I know I'm speculating, but no where does it say she hid and murded the baby!

Are there now more baby hatches than just the one in Kumamoto?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_hatch#Japan

Wiki seems to still only be aware of the Kumamoto one. Ironically, if that is accurate, it is probably safer prison-wise to kill your baby than to leave it at a police station. Five years for abandoning a baby vs. whatever sentence you'd get for killing it? Might take your chances with allowing it to die and burying it on the veranda.

Terrible and traumatizing for the boy. I hope he can get that image out of his head.

Creepy, I just hope that the kid will get psychological help to cope up with this traumatic experince caused by his mother.

I'm curious to know why were the exes living together? Is that normal in Japan?

Poor kid who found it though...that'll give him nightmares for a while.