Horrifying Truth Of A 35-Year-Old Woman Who Kept Her Infant’s Corpse Hidden In A Plastic Container For Years

A South Korean court indicted a 35-year-old woman on June 15, Thursday, for hiding the body of her infant in a plastic container for three years.

The 35-year-old mother was arrested by the in December 2022 | Yonhap

The woman and her ex-husband, Choi, kept her 15-month-old daughter’s corpse in a kimchi container since early 2020 to hide her death from parental negligence. While the mother has been sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison, Choi received two years and four months. Both sentences were lighter than the prosecutors had requested — 13 years for the mother and five years for the former husband.

This heinous crime came to light after the city government of Pocheon in Gyeonggi started to look into the whereabouts and safety of children aged three or younger in October 2022. The initiative was a welcome move amidst rising child abuse cases while kids have been confined to their homes since Covid-19 hit the world. When the authorities noticed that this 15-month-old girl had not received any medical checkups for a year, they sensed foul play and started investigating.

The mother refused to cooperate with the authorities when they tried to contact her. After they finally got a hold of her, she lied, saying that her daughter was staying with a relative. But the local government reported the missing child to the police after the woman refused to bring her child with her for verification.

The police found the toddler’s corpse in a plastic container, often used to store kimchi. It was hidden inside a suitcase on the rooftop of a lowrise residential building in Seodaemun District, Seoul. This building is home to the ex-husband’s parents. Further investigation revealed that the infant died in January 2020 due to negligence. It was revealed that the mother would often leave the child alone at home while visiting her ex-husband, who was serving prison time then. The Pocheon police arrested the couple in December 2022.

The prosecutors described the mother’s abuse in detail, mentioning that she left her child alone approximately 70 times since 2019 to travel to the prison five hours away from her home. The toddler had received only three of the 18 required vaccinations, and the mother never took her to a hospital when she fell sick. After she died from continued negligence, the mother hid her body in the container with the help of her ex-husband, who was released by then. However, the couple allegedly kept pocketing the government’s child support for the next three years.

During the trial, the woman denied abusing her daughter, claiming she died unexpectedly in her sleep. However, the court found the couple guilty and sentenced them to prison. Additionally, the Uijeungbu District Court restricted the mother from employment at institutions related to children for five years after her release and ordered her to complete 80 hours of child abuse prevention classes.