Killer aunt who hid baby in washing machine arrested
China Daily, December 11, 2013
The Songjiang District People's Procuratorate in Shanghai has approved the arrest of a woman who killed her four-month-old nephew and hid his body in a washing machine last month.
The woman, surnamed Lei, 22, admitted suffocating the baby boy with her hand.
Lei married in May 2012 and gave birth to a baby girl. In July this year, her husband's sister-in-law, who lives in the same house, gave birth to a son.
"My dowry was only 46,000 yuan (US$7,576) when I got married, but my sister-in-law received 100,000 yuan during her marriage," she reportedly told police. "My mother-in-law was always partial towards her, which depressed me. I suspected that was because she delivered a son, who was of more value than my daughter."
"I just wanted to let my anger out on her baby. I carried him into the washroom when I heard my father-in-law come home," Lei said in her confession: "In panic, I covered his mouth and nose with my hands and soon after, I found the baby was still."
A neighbor said the victim's family left Shanghai and went back to their hometown in Anhui Province after arranging for the boy's funeral service.
A massive search was launched by Shanghai police after the baby went missing from his stroller at home on November 24.
He was found dead in a washing machine in his own home by his mother three days later. He was kept in the washing machine without clothes and wrapped in a plastic sheet.
