Baby boy found dead in trash
KATHU (Gazette/Kom Chad Luek): Police are unsure whether a newborn child found dead in a black plastic trash bag was stillborn or was deliberately murdered.
Garbage collectors making their normal rounds made the gruesome discovery at about 4 am yesterday, as they were collecting trash opposite Phuket Country Club on Wichit Songkhram Rd.
Tung Tong Police and workers from the Kusoldharm Foundation recovered the body. The body, that of a male, was no more than three days old and still had the umbilical cord attached. The body was covered in blood and bruises, especially around the neck where the child had apparently been strangled with a length of thin nylon cord.
Rescue workers noted that the dead child had black hair and a light complexion, and weighed about three kilograms – normally considered a healthy birth weight.
Tung Tong Police Inspector Pol Capt Parichat Jaturonphan said the baby appeared to have died at least 24 hours before his body was discovered.
The corpse was sent to Kathu Hospital for further examination to see whether the precise cause of death could be established, he said.
Capt Parichat told the Gazette this morning that initial attempts to learn the identity of the child’s mother had been unsuccessful.
He noted that the area where the body was discovered was a public area, near a community with a good deal of low-cost housing for students.
“We have to wait for the autopsy results. We are not sure whether the child was born alive and then strangled with the nylon cord, or whether he was stillborn and the mother tied the cord around his neck to dispose of the body without having to touch it, because she was afraid,” he said.
