Police in northern Vietnam have arrested an elderly woman for allegedly murdering her newborn granddaughter last Saturday after a fortune teller told her that the birth of the baby would be a bad omen for the family.
“All evidence and testimonies prove that Pham Thi Xuan, the grandmother of the victim, is the murderer,” Lieutenant Colonel Trinh Huu Thanh, chief of police in Bim Son Town in Thanh Hoa Province, said late Tuesday.
Police at the crime scene. Photo courtersy of Bim Son's Police Department |
Xuan, 66, told the police that she had killed her son’s daughter because a fortune teller told her the baby would bring bad luck to her family.
After committing the crime on November 25, she allegedly hid the baby's body and claimed that her 20-day-old granddaughter had been kidnapped by a young couple who broke into the house and threatened her with a knife.
The next morning, she dumped the body in a trash can 300 meters (984 feet) from the house where she was living with her son and daughter-in-law.
A day later, a waste collector discovered the body of the baby in a bag that also contained the name and phone number of the father.
Police are investigating further.