A 31-YEAR-OLD woman, who may be suffering from post-partum depression, was arrested by authorities after she allegedly drowned her 11-month-old daughter inside a dormitory in Barangay Sto. Niño, Cebu City, Friday evening, July 26, 2019.
Jane, not her real name, was arrested by members of the Waterfront police after killing her baby, who was sick.
Police Senior Master Sergeant Erasmo Rosel Jr., investigator-on-case, said the victim and the suspect are residents of Tangub City, Misamis Occidental.
They had come to Cebu City to seek a doctor’s second opinion on the child’s health condition.
The baby, who is the suspect’s youngest child, had been having fever on and off.
“They arrived here last July 25. They were accompanied by the suspect’s father, who said he had just gone out for around 20 minutes to buy potable water. When he came back, he noticed that his granddaughter was already missing,” Rosel said.
The father reportedly asked Jane where her daughter was, but she replied that she did not know.
“He checked the comfort room and there, he found the victim inside a pail full of water with her head first,” Rosel said.
Rosel added that when they asked Jane what happened, she only replied, “There’s a demon here.”
“Before the incident, a bellboy saw the suspect talking to someone over the phone asking him to help her ‘kill the demon,’ but the victim, he said, was still alive during that time,” Rosel said.
The suspect’s mother, Bing (not her real name), admitted that her only daughter Jane already showed symptoms of depression in the past.
“She was depressed before when she was still in high school, but she recovered after we admitted her to a mental rehabilitation center. She has a medical prescription, but she was not able to take them. I don’t believe she will be charged with a formal complaint since she was not in her right mind when the incident happened. She was stressed when her daughter got sick,” she said.
Rosel said the suspect will undergo a psychiatric test to verify if the suspect is truly exempted from criminal liability.
“She could be charged with parricide, but we will first subject her to a psychiatric test to check if she’s truly exempted from liability,” Rosel said.