Police send to court the case of parents who hid a dead child in the freezer

Police investigators have completed the investigation and sent to the Suvorov Court of Odesa the case of an Odesa resident and her partner who left their son unattended and hid the body in a freezer after her death.

According to the press service of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Odesa Oblast, at the end of January this year, the body of a boy aged 1 year and 3 months was found in a freezer in an apartment in the Peresypskyi district of Odesa, where the baby lived with his sister, who was a year older, his 18-year-old mother, and her 44-year-old partner, who had spent more than 12 years in prison for property crimes.

The police detained the parents and, at the request of the investigators, the court imposed on them a preventive measure in the form of detention without bail.

During the pre-trial investigation, the police found that as a result of the woman's neglect of her son, he suffered thermal burns to several parts of his body, which, according to the results of the examination, are classified as serious bodily harm on the grounds of life-threatening injuries. The mother and her partner observed the symptoms of the child'sinjury, including loss of consciousness and respiratory distress, but did not seek medical attention, and the boy died.

According to the forensic medical examination, the child's death was causally related to a burn disease that arose from burns to the body and was complicated by the development of a fat embolism.

To conceal the fact of the baby's death, the mother's partner wrapped the body in plastic wrap, hid it in a bag, and then in a freezer, where it remained for about two weeks until it was discovered by police.

Currently, the man and woman are charged under Article 135(3) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - deliberately leaving a person in a life-threatening condition and deprived of the opportunity to take measures for self-preservation due to minority, if the person who left the person without help was obliged to take care of that person and was able to provide assistance if they caused the person's death.

In addition, the woman is accused of malicious failure to fulfill her parents' statutory childcare responsibilities, which led to serious consequences, and the man is accused of desecrating the body of the deceased.

Under current law, they face up to eight years in prison. The two-year-old girl, who was also raised in the family, is currently in an institution.

Кирило Бойко