Newborn Girl Poisoned, Body Dumped In Trash Can With Umbilical Cord Attached

A Burmese couple was arrested last week after the body of their newborn baby was found in a trash can at an apartment complex in the Malaysian state of Selangor, police said Thursday.

Police responded to the apartment in the wee hours Aug. 27, after a resident alerted them about finding a newborn’s body in the trash can. Upon arrival, the officers found the baby with the umbilical cord still intact.

“The body was found wrapped in a black cloth and left inside the rubbish storage bin located at the ground floor of the apartment,” police said, adding that a pair of women’s undergarments was also found along with the deceased baby.

The baby’s body was sent for autopsy, which revealed that the girl died from poisoning. Following investigation, police managed to trace the baby’s biological parents and took them into custody.

“The couple are Burmese and are about 30 years old. They are suspected of maiming a newborn baby girl,” police said.

The couple was charged with disposing of the newborn’s body and police were investigating to find out the circumstances behind the baby’s birth. Police said the case was being treated as murder.

In a similar incident in March this year, a Singaporean couple was caught dumping their newborn in a restaurant’s trash bin in Taiwan. The couple had flown to Taiwan and stayed at a hotel for a week before flying back to Singapore. An employee of a recycling plant alerted police after finding the body of the newborn among the garbage. Investigations revealed the body was dumped in a restaurant’s food trash can and was then transported to the recycling plant by a garbage truck. CCTV footage showed a man dumping a plastic bag in the trash can. Further investigations revealed the couple stayed in a hotel a few meters away from the restaurant. The hotel staff said the woman was heavily pregnant when she checked in but her stomach “suddenly became flat when leaving the hotel.”