Taiwanese police are on the hunt for a couple from Singapore who are suspected to have disposed of a dead newborn baby girl in a recycling bin in central Taipei.
Central News Agency reported that the body of the infant was actually discovered in Xindian, New Taipei City — within the greater Taipei Metropolitan area — on Tuesday, when an employee at a recycling company opened up a plastic bag in a kitchen waste bucket. A garbage truck had transported the body across town after collecting waste in Ximending district, located in central Taipei.
Local police were alerted to the horrifying find: A deceased baby girl with her umbilical cord and placenta intact. It is believed that the child was disposed of shortly after being born.
‘Foreign accent’
After poring through hundreds of surveillance footage located along the route of the garbage truck, the police managed to find some leads — a man in his 20s who had checked into a hotel in the Wanhua district with a woman. The man is suspected to have wrapped the baby in a black plastic bag and threw the package into a kitchen waste bucket around 3am on Tuesday.
Members of the public the police spoke to mentioned that the man spoke Mandarin with a foreign accent. By the time Xindian police visited a hotel in the area, the identified suspect had already checked out. Investigations revealed that the man and his female companion are from Singapore, and flew off from Taiwan on Tuesday afternoon.
Nonetheless, police collected DNA samples from the room occupied by the couple to determine if they are related to the deceased baby. According to Central News Agency, investigators are trying to contact Singapore police to seek assistance in questioning the couple.
