A MALAYSIAN student who stuffed her newborn baby in a cereal box and hid it in a suitcase has been convicted of murder in the United Kingdom.
Jia Xin Teo, a 22-year-old from Malaysia arrived in the UK earlier this year to study at Coventry University and gave birth in March.
Foreign reports said she then placed the baby in a cereal box inside a sealable plastic bag, which was placed in a suitcase.
Teo allegedly gave birth to the baby girl in the en suite of her bedroom, where her flatmate found her bed “covered in blood”, Warwick Crown Court heard.
She refused to come out of the bathroom and when an ambulance was called she declined medical treatment and paramedics left.
However, she later went to hospital by taxi when her condition deteriorated.
Reports said she admitted to killing the child two days later as police discovered the suitcase which her flatmates had helped move.
In court, she claimed she heard voices which told her to kill or harm the baby, but a jury at Warwick Crown Court rejected her defence.
Prosecutors added that the baby was alive after birth and that Teo knew the child would die after being placed in the box.
According to reports in cps.gov.uk, James Leslie Francis, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Jia Xin Teo hid her pregnancy from everyone she knew and arrived in the UK knowing that she was likely to give birth here.
“She had the opportunity to seek help but instead chose to carry her pregnancy in secret and give birth alone. After she gave birth, she still did not tell anybody and refused to go to the hospital to get checked.
“She lied to friends who cared about her, to doctors at the hospital and to the police so that no one would find her baby. She did not tell the police where she hid her baby until two days had passed by which time the baby would certainly be dead.
“Baby Teo was alive after birth and could have survived but Jia Xin Teo decided to place her inside a cereal box knowing that it would kill her,”. - October 25, 2024
