Newborn baby's body found in bag near pond

What a news to start "kodomo no hi" with!!!

very sad. i hope they find whoever did this.

Despicable.

inverse: It's frustrating, I know, but in Japan there's a very slippery slope the keystones walk when it comes to pressing charges or treating suspects, heck even in the media! You can't use the words 'guilty' or charge people with murder or what have you until it's been confirmed. In this case, with a decayed corpse, unless there are VERY clear signs the baby was murdered (ie. knife marks, holes, broken bones, etc.) it would be quite hard to tell, so that's all the police can charge anyone with at the moment. It's entirely possible the baby died naturally and was indeed simply abandoned like that. We'll probably never know.

In any case, this is very sad news, especially on Children's Day. Get those baby hatches installed in every locality, people! Even if it was not murder there's still good argument for such devices here.

This is definitely a sad thing for any "mother" to do to her child, stillborn or not. This person definitely is in need of a mental evaluation and lets just hope whoever she is, she is not out there trying to have anymore kids. RIP lil one..sorry you did not get the chance to live a enjoyable & productive life.

And Kurume is so close to the baby hatch in Kumamoto, too.

There is a certain degree of history, or even tradition, to the crime of infanticide in Japan. According to Macfarlane ("The Savage Wars of Peace," 2003) a condition for cultural-economic advance is limiting population growth.He claims, this was achieved by abstinence, contraception in both the UK and Japan, but also by abortion in the UK whereas in Japan it was achieved in part by infanticide or "mabiki" (lit, "thinning out", as one thins out seedlings). This about infanticide in Japan http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/savage/A-JAPINF.PDF This about abortion in the UK http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/savage/A-ABORT.PDF Some of those who carried out infanticide in Japan believed, or acted with the excuse that, a child thus killed would be reborn as a subsequent child. The Buddhist religious establishment was of course strongly against the practice and produced cautionary literature showing for instance those that practised mabiki going to hell. This tragedy happened near the centre of a City. http://tinyurl.com/7ut44ee

sad

smithinjapan, I agree with you my friend. Baby hatches are much better and let the mother be able to let the child live.

sad

Disgusting beyond words...a Hell realm awaits the "thing" that did this...

This is terrible! How can anyone do this...... :(

Really weird how the justice system labels crimes... If you dump a body, several things come into play: Murder/Abuse, Negligence, Abandonment, etc. Even more concerning is that for all these cases that reported, there are a few of them that get follow ups for who did it, what were they convicted of, and what needs to be done for something that keeps reoccurring.

Baby hatches should be put into play. Any Koban, Fire station, Hospital, and city/ward office should have a place for people to SAFELY turn over their child for proper care. But then again, this is a tough thing to implement, as they already had an issue with keeping the prior custodian anonymous... Of course they need to keep that area under surveillance for safety reasons, but other than that, if the child is safe and sound, work on providing the kid a happy a fun filled life.

Please note that murder has not been proven.

Neither has the crime under investigation. You needn't prove a crime to investigate it.

When will we here good news about children in this country??? A nation with such a low birth rate and you still here such bad news about babies every now and then. Dame da na...

Please note that murder has not been proven.

Horrendous.

Fukuoka, the last time I checked is a yakuza infested place, yakuza means many prostitutes, drugs, etc..get poor young ladies, drunk,stoned, having sex with god who knows how many idiot perverts every night and day and, low and behold somebody is bound to get pregnant, they find out they are pregnant do nothing about it have the baby in some nasty toilet etc..hence this kind of terrible incident of fools abandoning babies and left to die, this is one SICK AND TWISTED society, not only Fukuoka but many parts of Japan and many parts of this world. RIP poor innocent child.

@Bob Sneider,

something is seriously wrong with this country

This country bothers to report all such incidents, just like we see child abuse, road deaths and other news being reported (and commented on here).

Contrast with where you're from, and you might just see that the media back home care more about reality TV, celebrity gossip and vacuous tat.

Have a nice day!

"a case as one of abandoning a corpse?" Oh Japanese Police, you sure have a way of giving murderers the benefit of the doubt.

inverse, the Japanese police like to press one charge at a time so as to extend a person's stay in detention. Its not a matter of benefit of the doubt. Its a sneaky, underhanded and corrupt method of squeezing out a confession. The murder charge just comes later if there is evidence. But no police force in any civilized country can do anything without evidence. See Casey Anthony.

But there probably won't be evidence of murder here. Odds are better that the child was stillborn, or the mother gave birth alone and just did not know what to do to make the baby breathe.

something is seriously wrong with this country