Information Times News (Reporter Zhao Chao, Intern Wei Weiwei, Chen Shu) Yesterday morning, Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court tried a case of an unmarried female worker killing her baby. The defendant, Ms. Yan, gave birth to a child with her ex-boyfriend in the toilet and, fearing that her current boyfriend would find out, threw the newborn baby out of the fifth-floor toilet window. Guangzhou People's Procuratorate prosecuted her for intentional homicide.
Her current boyfriend never discovered
Ms. Yan, 19 years old, dropped out of school after the second year of junior high school and came to Guangzhou to work at the age of 14. Before the incident, she was an employee at a textile factory in Lujiang, Haizhu District. In early 2008, Yan became pregnant while dating her ex-boyfriend. They broke up in May, and she met her current boyfriend in September. To deal with the matter of the child, Yan had contacted her ex-boyfriend, but he firmly denied that the child was his. This left Yan in a difficult situation, and she feared that if her current boyfriend found out, he would leave her. So, she chose to conceal the truth.
Because of her relatively plump figure, her current boyfriend never realized that she was pregnant. On January 29, 2009, which was the second day of the Lunar New Year, Yan claimed she had stomach pain, and after taking painkillers, she felt slightly better. The next morning at around 6 o'clock, Yan went to the toilet thinking it was due to gastrointestinal discomfort, but unexpectedly, she delivered a baby. Worried that her boyfriend would find out about the child being from her ex-boyfriend, Yan threw her own child out of the fifth-floor toilet window. That day, the dead infant was discovered by a passerby, and later the police investigated and took Yan away. The prosecutor argued that Yan illegally deprived another person of life, violating the provisions of intentional homicide in the Criminal Law.
Yesterday morning, Yan cried as she entered the courtroom, and her plump figure made her look nothing like a 19-year-old girl. Because the case involved privacy, the court temporarily decided not to hold a public hearing. However, Yan cried from the beginning to the end of the trial, and her cries could even be heard in the corridor outside the courtroom.
Was the baby already dead before being thrown?
The prosecutor argued that according to the forensic medical examination conclusions, the baby died from severe cranial brain damage caused by falling from a great height. Yan, out of fear that her boyfriend would know, illegally deprived the child of its life, constituting intentional homicide.
In court, Yan cried in her defense, saying, "The incident happened too suddenly. When I gave birth in the squat toilet, the baby fell into the toilet bowl, and the umbilical cord somehow broke. After I picked him up, I accidentally dropped him into a bucket again. When I picked him up again, I already felt his body was cold, and he neither moved nor cried." "Because I was so scared, I didn't even know if it was a boy or a girl. At that time, I thought he was already dead." Yan also stated that she had never thought of having an abortion, let alone killing the baby after giving birth. She always intended to give the baby away or abandon it at the hospital.
The lawyer providing legal aid believed that Yan's guilt could not be solely inferred based on one judicial appraisal result. The lawyer argued that a newborn is very fragile, and unexpected incidents before being thrown might have already resulted in death. Furthermore, the only eyewitness was Yan herself, and this possibility still cannot be ruled out. It is reported that the case has now been concluded and will be announced on a selected date.