crime

22-year-old woman arrested for putting newborn baby in coin locker

30 Comments

Police in Chitose, Hokkaido, have arrested a 22-year-old unemployed woman on suspicion of corpse abandonment after she placed the body of her newborn baby son in a coin locker.

According to police, Ayano Koseki, of no fixed address, has admitted to placing the infant in the coin locker at JR Chitose Station on May 31, Kyodo News reported. A station cleaning employee found the dead infant’s remains, with its umbilical cord still attached, in a cooler box inside the locker on the morning of June 7.

Police said station surveillance camera footage showed Koseki putting the cooler box in the locker. She was detained after being found at a leisure facility in Sapporo on Thursday and charged on Friday. She was quoted by police as saying she had come to Hokkaido from the Tohoku region earlier this year, knowing she was pregnant.

She told police she had been staying in internet cafes in Sapporo but had given birth in a room at a cheap hotel.

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30 Comments
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retching to think it was there eight days. the other girl also early 20’s, leaving her newborn babe in a suitcase in mum’s cupboard at home.

12 ( +13 / -1 )

Just saddening and not the ideal Japan image the government wants the world to see:

no fixed address” Sounds truly homeless in addition to unemployed.

found at a leisure facility.” Like a youth hostel, an internet cafe, a game arcade?

she had come to Hokkaido earlier this year, knowing she was pregnant.” From where?

So many questions, so few answers and…

apparently no help on the horizon for Japan’s hopeless women and girls.

11 ( +14 / -3 )

Heads up, typo, last paragraph: “… any further information …” ?

Moderator: Thanks for pointing that out.

7 ( +9 / -2 )

That seems kinda high with health insurance.

You get it reimbursed but you do have pay up front yourself, heaven knows why they thought that was a good system but here we are.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Yes, you can get reimbursed, but as stated above you first have to pay out of pocket and then get the money back. Also gogogo, not every city has the coupon style, it is up to each city to decide. Also the cost of seeing a doctor while pregnant is much more expensive and the patient has to pay.

I had two kids in the JP system in minato-ku ward, never had to pay a single yen upfront, just gave them my coupon. When my kids were born, nothing, not a single yen. I don't have private health insurance, it was all on the public system. It's free, just fill out the right paperwork, it's the same ones to get the little "I'm pregnant" keychain and the checkup book.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

I had two kids in the JP system in minato-ku ward, never had to pay a single yen upfront, just gave them my coupon. When my kids were born, nothing, not a single yen. I don't have private health insurance, it was all on the public system. It's free, just fill out the right paperwork, it's the same ones to get the little "I'm pregnant" keychain and the checkup book.

Same with both my children. I never paid a yen out of pocket for their birthing fees.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Another coin locker corpse. After living in Japan for nearly twenty years and babies being dumped at least monthly (sometimes more often) it is a problem with no solution and will continue. The single baby hatch in Japan has been taking 20-30 babies a year. That is only in one prefecture.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

There is an underclass in Japan which is growing; I notice it more and more everyday…

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Where are the humane options in Japan for desperate women like a simple “baby hatches” at hospitals and fire stations?

Japan has a baby hatch hospital but it seems no one knows about it.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

So this sow basically was having fun after leaving the body of a baby in a locker, what a monster! Wen rope?

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Wasn’t that a Ryo Murakami book, Coin Locker Baby?

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Yes, you can get reimbursed, but as stated above you first have to pay out of pocket and then get the money back. Also gogogo, not every city has the coupon style, it is up to each city to decide. Also the cost of seeing a doctor while pregnant is much more expensive and the patient has to pay.

All I'm saying is make it free, don't charge and then reimburse, and maybe there will be fewer of these incidents!

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

After living in Japan for nearly twenty years and babies being dumped at least monthly (sometimes more often) it is a problem with no solution and will continue.

We certainly read of many such cases on JT. I wondered what the actual numbers were. I couldn't find any substantial data, but I read that there are about 20 cases per year in Japan of babies being abandoned or murdered. I also found there are about 50 such cases per year in the UK, but I don't recall reading about any of them in the news in the UK. I also read that 22,000 babies per year are "left in hospitals" in the US, but it seems that includes cases where the parent is deemed unable to care for them, so not just abandonment.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Have no sympathy for this women, stick her in a locker and throw away the key....what a disgrace!!!!

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

My son's wife just gave birth and the cost was over Y400,000. 

That seems kinda high with health insurance.

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

My son's wife just gave birth and the cost was over Y400,000.

Did your son family register the pregnancy with the ward office? Having babies in Japan is free, you register and they give you coupons which covers everything.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

The comments about the need for more baby hatches, etc. are generally valid but you've got to ask yourself if a woman so callous as to murder her newborn baby isn't so inherently evil (or damaged) as to make that issue academic.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Tragic. The sad parade of Japan’s increasingly desperate young women continues. . . .

Tues, Jun 7: - https://japantoday.com/category/crime/23-year-old-woman-arrested-for-abandoning-infant’s-body-inside-suitcase-hidden-in-closet -

Where are the humane options in Japan for desperate women like a simple “baby hatches” at hospitals and fire stations?

-3 ( +14 / -17 )

I know it is terrible what the girl did, and I feel so sorry for the poor baby, but the Japanese system is failing both mother and baby. It is so expensive in Japan to have a baby. My son's wife just gave birth and the cost was over Y400,000. A young scared 22 year old, probably doesn't have that kind of money and what do they do, they have the baby at home and then do something crazy like putting them into a coin locker. If Japan wants more children make hospitals free of charge and those women who do not want to keep or don't have the means will be able to leave them for adoption so a loving couple can raise the child!

-3 ( +6 / -9 )

Can we get these youngins some complimentary condoms or BC pills or something?

or at least teach them about adoption?

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

For the love of gods, Japan, please install more baby hatches in ALL prefectures and wards and implement and make known to the public the uses of these along with something akin to a Safe Haven Law where mothers can drop the babies off at the fire station or police station. This country keep talking about low birthrates and trying to get people to have more kids - how? How will they achieve this when cases like this keep happening because the mother is so desperate and ignorant of the options available that she resorts to stuffing her newborn child into a PUBLIC LOCKER?!?! Educate your citizens and provide more support.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

TokyoJoe

"That seems kinda high with health insurance."

You get it reimbursed but you do have pay up front yourself, heaven knows why they thought that was a good system but here we are.

Weird that they require you to pay up front. Other medical procedures and hospitalizations only require the patient's co-payment, with the insurance-paid portion deducted from the bill before given to the patient.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

a” as in one baby hatch hospital for 47 prefectures. This woman last month was in Hokkaido, the other this week in Tokyo. Agreed @gogogo 7:37pm, it’s embarrassing. Where is Japan’s one location ?

- @gogogo 7:37pm: “Japan has a baby hatch hospital but it seems no one knows about it” -

Truly deplorable for a G7 “developed nation”.

-5 ( +9 / -14 )

This is what it looks like when you make abortion such an obstacle for these desperate women.

In Japan, the father has to give permission. Bizarre

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

How come this kind of thing happen in a country very developed , what a life !

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

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