Crime/ Murder

 

Second abandoned baby found dead outside of Sydney, Australia

By Dave Andrusko

Police organise a search of the sand dunes after children playing at a Sydney beach stumbled across the body of a baby buried under the sand. Source: AFP

Less than a week after an abandoned newborn baby boy was rescued from the bottom of a storm water drain outside of Sydney, Australia, the body of a second baby, a girl, was found by two young boys at the southern end of Maroubra Beach in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. [See “Abandoned newborn survives days at the bottom of a storm drain in record heat in Australia”]
The baby’s body was so badly decomposed, it was not until an autopsy was performed that it was learned that the baby was a girl. Likewise, how exactly the baby died was yet to be determined (assuming it can ever be).
As of yesterday, no information had been released about how old the baby was or how long she had been buried under a foot of sand. The boys who found her were six and seven years old.
Authorities are frantically searching for the mother of the dead baby, but she has not been located. By scouring local hospital records and going door to door, police did find the 30-year-old mother of the rescued child. She has been charged with attempted murder.
The first baby was rescued by cyclists who heard intense crying, although at first they couldn’t tell it was a baby. They found her at the bottom of an eight-foot-deep storm drain. The concrete slab covering the storm drain was so massive (over 400 pounds), it took six people, who included two police officers who had arrived on the scene, to lift it.

A baby boy was found abandoned, but alive, in a drain at Quakers Hill. AFP PHOTO / William WEST Source: AFP

They found the day old baby wrapped in a striped hospital blanket covered in dirt with the peg still attached to his cut umbilical cord.

Two cases of abandonment have, not surprisingly, “sent a community into shock,” according to News Com Australia. Various news outlets reported that the grisly discovery, coming on the heels of the miraculous rescue of the first baby, have reignited the debate over the need for what are called baby safe havens in Australia.

These are found in a number of countries around the world, including the United States. The details vary from country to country, but the idea is to provide a place, such as a church, fire station, police station, or hospital, where an adult can discreetly and safely leave a child without criminal prosecution.

The debate, found in newspaper accounts, is a familiar one. Those opposed say it encourages child abandonment. Those in favor readily concede it is not a be-all end-all answer.
Former Australian Medical Association president Andrew Pesce told Daily Mail Australia that baby safe havens “would not stop every instance of abandonment but could help mothers and babies at risk,“ adding, “I think it’s part of a whole system of things — it can’t be the only solution to this problem.”

Source: NRLC News