Dead newborn baby found in bin at Chai Wan shopping mall
Grisly find at Heng Fa Chuen shopping centre is the latest in a string of similar incidents
A newborn baby wrapped in plastic, clothes and a recycling bag has been found dead inside a shopping-mall rubbish bin.
A cleaner found the boy's body - with umbilical cord still attached - inside the ground floor ladies' washroom at the Paradise Mall in Heng Fa Chuen at about 7am yesterday.
Emergency services arrived about half an hour later and the boy was declared dead at the scene. He had been dead for an estimated 12 to 24 hours, police said.
Bruises were found on his hands, legs and chest, said Chief Inspector Sammual Lam Siu-wah, of Eastern district police.
"[During delivery] someone else, or the mother herself, might have tried to pull the baby out by force, and in the process caused the corresponding bruises," Lam said.
Lam said that the baby was thought to be full-term and of Asian descent, although he did not know if the infant was ethnic Chinese.
The corpse was taken to the morgue yesterday afternoon. An autopsy will be conducted, possibly today, to find the cause of death.
Police are reviewing the mall's CCTV footage.
The discovery is the latest in a string of similar incidents this year.
Last month, a 28-week-old fetus, also wrapped in a recycling bag, was found by a cleaner on an empty train at Yau Ma Tei station.
The girl was taken to the Kwong Wah Hospital where she was declared dead.
After reviewing CCTV footage, police arrested a 27-year-old Indonesian domestic worker on suspicion of murdering her own child.
In January, the body of a newborn girl wrapped in a shopping bag was found inside a public toilet block in North Point.
The baby, who had bruises on her forehead, was certified dead at the scene by paramedics.
