Japanese police arrested a woman believed to be a devoted mother for allegedly trying to murder her baby daughter by injecting her with “rotten water” at a hospital, an official said yesterday.
The woman, 35, whose name was withheld for the sake of the surviving girl, was arrested on Wednesday in the western city of Kyoto on suspicion of attempted murder, a police spokesman said.
Police said the girl was the youngest of the woman’s five daughters.
Reports said three of them had died before they turned four because of illness.
The mother denied the intention to kill, while admitting she made “rotten water” by letting a mixture of a sports drink and water go bad, police said.
“I didn’t do that to kill her. I thought I could continue to take care of her if she gets sick,” she told investigators, as quoted by police.
Local media said the woman may have a mental disorder known as Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy, whose sufferers may intentionally sicken their children so they can perform the role of devoted parents.
A hospital camera caught her injecting her 22-month-old daughter with the contaminated water through an intravenous drip, the police spokesman said.
The girl was in an intensive care unit of a Kyoto hospital for blood poisoning.
The woman seemed to be taking good care of her sick daughter, with a relative quoted on television as saying she was a devoted mother.
But suspicion grew at the Kyoto University Hospital as the girl repeatedly had a high fever after the mother acted strangely around her.
“She was excessively hugging her and was interested in the IV, but I presumed it was because of her strong maternal instincts,” hospital deputy chief Satoshi Ichiyama told reporters late on Wednesday.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in