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The police said Friday night that a DNA test showed the body found in the Duong River in the city was that of Giap Thi Huyen Trang, who had allegedly asked the toddler’s parents for a ransom to return her on Tuesday.
Trang had been hired as a nanny by a family living in Vinhomes Oceanpark in Gia Lam District, and her job included picking up the girl daily from a nearby kindergarten.
On Tuesday afternoon, after picking her up, she contacted the parents using various sim cards and demanded VND1.5 billion (US$61,800) to return her.
Security camera footage shows her picking up the girl at school at 3:50 p.m. and leaving on a scooter.
According to the police, Trang then and drove to neighboring Hung Yen Province.
As Trang kept driving around, the child’s parents transferred VND550 million to an account she gave them.
Early on Wednesday morning, the child's body was found in a ditch in Me So Commune in Hung Yen’s Van Giang District.
Nguyen Van Thanh, 69, a local, told the police he was heading to his rice field on Tuesday evening when a woman on a scooter with a child approached him and asked for directions to the nearest drugstore.
He told her she had to turn around, but she did not follow his instructions and drove away.
As he continued on his way, he heard the child crying.
The next morning, on hearing that a child's body had been found in a ditch near his field, he rushed to the scene and recognized her as the toddler he had seen the previous day.
Shortly after the girl was confirmed dead, the police issued a warrant on Trang for "murder."
They have not revealed if the child had been killed or died after being abandoned in the ditch. They assume that the child cried a lot, causing Trang to panic and decide to get rid of her.
Trang’s body was found in the river on Thursday night.
The police said it is possible that she was aware of being wanted for murder and so decided to kill herself.
Trang, 27, was a native of northern Bac Giang Province. After graduating from pedagogy, she could not find a job as a teacher in her hometown, and moved to other localities and did other jobs.
