Horrifying Double Infanticide: Mother Detained For Storing Her Newborns' Bodies In A Home Freezer For Years

On Thursday, June 22, KST, the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) reported that two unregistered infants in the Gyeonggi Province were found dead in the same house, with their bodies stored in a freezer.

BAI has tracked that out of the 2.6 million babies born between 2015 to 2022, approximately 2,236 don’t have any record of registration. This has, in turn, made it difficult for the government to confirm whether these infants are dead or alive. The state auditor singled out 23 unregistered babies among the 2,236, instructing the local governments to look into their whereabouts.

Two of those 23 babies were found in the same house in Suwon, Gyeonggi-do, apparently murdered by their mother. The woman in her 30s killed both of her babies, who were born a year apart. The first murder took place in November 2018 at her home. The second time, it was near the hospital in November 2019, just a day after she had given birth. The police discovered that she had stored their bodies in a refrigerator at home.

The woman reportedly confessed to the killings and stated that she did so because she couldn’t afford to raise them. Her husband told the police that he was unaware of the crime.

I knew my wife was pregnant, but I didn’t know she had killed the babies. I trusted her when she told me she had an abortion.

I am sorry for not protecting the babies. I suspected something was wrong when the police recently investigated my wife, but I didn’t think she had done something like this.

—The father’s statement

The father, however, still remains a suspect in the ongoing murder investigation. The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency is seeking an arrest warrant for the mother.

The Gyeonggi Provincial Policy Agency building

The couple have three older children together, aged eight, ten, and twelve. Both of them work at a call center in Suwon.

As harrowing as it is, this case is not isolated when it comes to the endangerment of unregistered children in Korea. The BAI audit has brought forward multiple such horrifying stories. In Hwaseong, police are investigating another case of child abandonment, where the mother gave her baby away to a complete stranger. During questioning, she confessed that she had given her infant away to someone she had gotten to know through an online chatroom. The baby was less than a month old when the mother abandoned them.

In March 2023, a mother was arrested for her involvement in the death of her 76-day-old baby, who died from malnutrition. This mother didn’t register her child’s birth either.

With these cases in the spotlight, the question of newborns’ safety has come up strongly. The government is trying to push for a new system where medical institutions will be obligated to notify local government authorities of childbirths. According to the current system, if the parent(s) of a newborn fails to register their child’s birth, the medical facility has no right to do it on their behalf. This has led to a growing body of unregistered children in the country who are constantly at risk.

Despite the government’s push for policy change, the medical community is opposing the proposal, citing added burden or paperwork. They also feel that this move will push women to give birth at unregistered facilities and that the government is trying to shove the responsibility of child safety on private institutions. According to a welfare ministry official, a bill to revise the Family Relation Registration Act, which aims to introduce the new system, is still pending at the National Assembly.

On the other hand, the Health Ministry announced that the government will keep tracking all the unregistered infants that came up during BAI’s audit.