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Police in Saku, Nagano Prefecture, said Tuesday they have arrested a 32-year-old unemployed woman on suspicion of abandoning the body of her newborn son.
According to police, the woman, Maaya Oda, placed the corpse of the baby boy in a plastic bag in the shrubbery outside her apartment after apparently giving birth there on May 31. Police said the bag was found by an apartment building resident cleaning the grounds on June 2.
Nearby surveillance camera footage showed the woman carrying a bag to the shrubbery.
Police said the infant appeared to have been dead for a few days and are questioning Oda on when the boy was born and how he died as there were no external signs of injury on the body which weighed about three kilograms.
© Japan Today
11 Comments
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AgentX
I never once saw a story like this where I am from. But here in Japan, stories of babies being dumped after the mother has refused to seek medical help (aka a normal childbirth) are quite common. It sounds like something that would happen in a 3rd world country.
I have to wonder if the Japanese government is disgusted by these occurrences and is making arrangements to help these people in need. Perhaps starting with education...
sensei258
My full-term baby was stillborn, I just didn't know what to do with the body. Riiiiight.
Fact_check
Sad story. @Agent X - Lucky u hommie , for being in “first world” country .
doel jusino
Wherever a women gives birth if the child is still born do the right thing and CALL the police and they will respond and bring medical personnel with them. DON'T throw the body in the trash that's so cruel, Now imagine a hungry stray dog finds this baby and starts eating it. This is a story that could of had a better ending. I wonder the cause of death.
Jonathan Prin
Was it an ecobag ?
Not enough free medical support centers perhaps ?
It happens regularly around the world...
sensei258
Besides being unemployed, she's likely unmarried since there's no mention of the baby's father. The odds are he was an unwanted child and she allowed him to die, if she didn't help him on the way.
Aly Rustom
agree with AgentX 100%
shogun36
How do these people live with themselves?
Before you think about wrapping up a baby like that (which should be never,) how about you tell "him" to wrap it up first?
Then this wouldn't be an issue in the first place. And by the way, get a job...............oh wait, I guess you can't now.
jcapan
AgentX, I think it's no more common here than elsewhere. According to the Chicago Tribune:
"A conservative estimate puts the incidence of neonaticide in the U.S. at 150 to 300 annually, although no official reporting requirements exist and many cases likely go undiscovered."
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/daily-southtown/ct-sta-ui-neonaticide-st-0424-20160422-story.html
We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this is a news site featuring the most egregious crimes reported from across the entire nation of 125 million people. I know when I was growing up the Washington Post or our local news affiliates never covered crimes outside of our metro area (pop. 5-6 million) unless they were truly heinous, mass shootings, serial killers, celebrity crime etc. I never would have heard about a crime of this nature taking place in say, Arkansas. Unless I was subscribing to a paper from Little Rock.
taj
Is she a junkie? How would she think the shrubbery just outside her apartment was any kind of hiding place? Severely mentally ill or severely mentally disabled? Not a criminal master-mind, at any rate.
These cases are all so tragic. And far, far too common.