A woman whose baby daughter starved to death in Taoyuan in 2016 was indicted on Monday, the Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office said.
The single mother, surnamed Wang (王), who is in her 20s, was charged with impairing the development of a minor and abandonment resulting in death, contraventions of the Criminal Code, the office said in a press release.
In a statement Wang gave to prosecutors, she said that she took separate three-day trips in October and November 2016, leaving the child at home alone both times.
When she returned home from the second trip, the baby had stopped breathing and she could not revive her, Wang’s statement said.
Wang allegedly disposed of the body without reporting the death to authorities, who have yet to locate it, prosecutors said.
It was not until 2020 when a hospital determined that the child had not been brought in for several years for vaccinations and it could not get in touch with the family that authorities realized something was amiss.
The hospital reported the situation to the Taoyuan Health Bureau, which passed the information to the Taoyuan Police Department’s Lujhu (路竹) Precinct.
Prosecutors in 2020 took over the case from police and launched an investigation.
They determined that Wang should be held responsible because she was reluctant to take care of the one-year-old, who she gave birth to in October 2015.
Wang had not spoken about the incident while being questioned by police, prosecutors said.
It was not until prosecutors showed her material they had uncovered in their investigation that she spoke about the incident, they said.
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