Battambang provincial criminal police are preparing to send a woman to court one day after arresting her for throwing her 38-day-old daughter into a canal in Prey Kon Sek village of Battambang town’s O’Char commune.
Serious crimes bureau chief Kor Sun Kaing identified the suspect as Horn Samen, 22.
“She has been charged with murder under Article 199 of the Criminal Code,” he said.
The suspect was married to Chiep Chamnap, 45, and had two children – a boy, 11, and the deceased girl. From birth, the youngest girl cried all night, from 8pm until 4am, and the parents took turns looking after her, he said.
On the morning of April 2, as the father was carrying his son out of the house, the suspect walked to the back of the house and took the sleeping girl from a hammock. She then threw the baby into a deep canal behind the house. The child bobbed up once and then sank into the water, he said.
He said the mother walked back inside, sat on the hammock and told her husband and aunt that someone had taken the baby.
They immediately went to the O’Char commune police station to ask for help.
According to Sun Kaing, after receiving the complaint, commune authorities reported the suspected abduction to the Battambang town police, who passed it to his serious crime bureau.
After receiving the report, he asked for legal coordination from the provincial court prosecutor.
On the same day, his officers summoned the mother of the child for questioning. The suspect confessed that the child had not been kidnapped, but that she had thrown her into the canal – because she believed the child was ‘born bad’ and had made her family poor.
The father searched and found the baby’s body in the canal.
