A One-Week-Old Newborn Flips Over by Itself? ... Horrifying Evidence Found on Parents' Cell Phones

Circumstantial Evidence of Murder Conspiracy After Mobile Phone Forensics
Deceased Infant with Disability on Arm Found Dead in Postpartum Care Center's Mother-Infant Room

Last month, at a local postpartum care center, a disabled infant who was one week old died under suspicious circumstances, and the police have changed the charges against the parents from negligent homicide to murder.

On the 22nd, Yonhap News reported that the police found evidence of a conspiracy to kill the child on the parents' mobile phones seized during a search. Earlier, on the 10th of last month, the police received a report that a one-week-old infant had died at a local postpartum care center. The reporter was the infant's father, Mr. A. According to the autopsy by the National Forensic Service, the infant died of suffocation. The infant also had a congenital disability in one arm. It was confirmed that the deceased infant stayed with the parents in a mother-and-child room within the postpartum care center until shortly before death. At the estimated time of death, no staff members entered the mother-and-child room.

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Mr. A and his wife stated during the police investigation, "When we woke up, the child who had been lying properly on the bed was found face down and not breathing." However, the police, suspicious that a newborn cannot roll over by themselves, seized and investigated the parents' mobile phones. After obtaining a search warrant, the police conducted forensic analysis on Mr. A and his wife's phones. As a result, evidence was found on the phones indicating that the couple had planned to kill the child. Previously, the police had booked Mr. A and his wife on charges of negligent homicide. Viewing that the couple intentionally killed the disabled child, the police are conducting additional investigations and plan to apply for arrest warrants for them soon.

Meanwhile, in February, a 30-year-old biological mother who killed and abandoned her newborn was sentenced to five years in prison. At that time, the Gwangju District Court Criminal Division 11 (Presiding Judge Go Sang-yeong) sentenced Park Mo (37), who was indicted on charges including killing a one-year-old, to five years in prison. Park was tried for killing her newborn on a street bench after being discharged from the obstetrics hospital one day after giving birth in February 2017.

Park's crime was uncovered six years later through a comprehensive investigation of unregistered births in 2023. She confessed to killing the child and abandoning the body when questioned by investigative authorities about the child's whereabouts. As an unwed mother, Park hid her pregnancy to avoid criticism from those around her, gave birth alone, and killed the child, she admitted. The court took into account that Park gave birth as an unwed mother and faced burdens in raising the child, and thus imposed the lightest sentence within the Supreme Court's sentencing recommendation.