Police said yesterday that a 19-year-old hairdresser spent 20 hours with her baby’s corpse by her side while she was working, before attempting to dispose of the corpse at Waimushan fishing harbor (外木山漁港) in Keelung on Wednesday night.
The incident was reported only after the hairdresser, Hsu Wen-ning (徐雯甯), suffered from a guilty conscience and called a friend, who reported her to Keelung police at 11pm on Wednesday night, police said, adding that the baby’s body was recovered at 2am yesterday.
Hsu said she met a man called A-gui (阿貴) at a night club and had a one-night stand with him on Feb. 24, adding that she was unaware she was pregnant until her menstrual period did not arrive in March.
“I called A-gui when I knew I was pregnant, but he told me to abort it. I wanted to have the baby and so I cut all contact with A-gui,” Hsu said.
She said that during her pregnancy her mother had been suspicious about her growing size, but that she had lied and blamed it on reckless overeating.
Hsu said she gave birth to her son at about 3am on Wednesday, but after giving birth, she found that the umbilical cord was wrapped twice around the baby’s throat.
After patting the baby on the back a few times with no reaction, she realized that her son had died.
Hsu said she put the baby’s corpse in a plastic bag, then placed it into a red backpack and took it to the beauty parlor where she worked.
With a busy schedule, she had not been able to leave until after 11pm.
According to police, Hsu said she rode her scooter to Waimushan harbor, and after placing the backpack, with a 2,000cc bottle of water, into three other plastic bags, threw the bags into the harbor.
However, after prosecutor Ho Chi-hui (何治蕙) viewed the corpse with forensic specialists yesterday, they said they found no strangulation marks around the baby’s neck from the umbilical cord as Hsu had claimed and no other visible signs of injury.
The prosecutor ordered an autopsy to be performed to determine if the baby was stillborn, died during birth or because of human error after birth.
Keelung District prosecutor Chou Chi-yung (周啟勇) said if the baby was stillborn or it died during birth, the mother would not be at fault. However, if the baby died after birth or because there were no medical facilities provided to keep it alive, then the mother could be charged with involuntary manslaughter for not adequately caring for the baby.
Translated by Jake Chung, staff writer
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