Police in the southern province of Vinh Long on Monday commenced legal proceedings against a woman on murder charges for her stabbing a 12-day-old baby in the head at a local hospital last week. Nguyen Thi Van, 51, from the neighboring province of Ben Tre, who was held right after committing the crime early on August 7, will be detained for four months and will be prosecuted for murder, police said. Colonel Phan Van Ngan, deputy director of the Vinh Long police department, said this is an especially serious case in which the woman had prepared for the crime in advance. Van used a 30-centimeter-long knife to stab the baby, Duong Minh Phat, in the head while she was staying in the same room with Phat and her mother, Vo Thi Hong Duyen, at the Vinh Long Province General Hospital, where the baby was receiving pneumonia treatment, police said. 

Duyen allowed Van to sleep in an empty bed in the room, as the mother and others in the room thought that the woman was taking care of someone else being treated in a room nearby, according to Dr. Nguyen Thi Thanh Tam, head of the neonatal resuscitation department of the hospital.

The 12-day-old baby is being treated at the Ho Chi Minh City Children's Hospital 1. Photo: Tuoi Tre

At 3:40 am on August 7, Van got up and tried to steal something from the room, Dr. Tam told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, citing a family member of the child.

She then stabbed the baby with her knife after Duyen noticed her stealing and shouted for help, the doctor said. Van was arrested by security guards and detained at the infirmary due to suicidal signs, news website VnExpress reported.

Meanwhile, Phat was taken to the Ho Chi Minh City Children's Hospital 1, and the clinic’s surgeons took the knife out of the head of the infant following a three-hour surgery last Saturday. When taking out the knife, doctors saw the wound cut into the skull and the brain and a portion of the blade, about 11cm long, penetrate the baby's brain. At a press briefing held by the hospital on Monday, doctors said Phat remained in critical condition, adding that they had conducted a consultation on how to further treat the baby.

A police officer reads the arrest warrant to Nguyen Thi Van on August 10, 2015. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Colonel Ngan, the deputy director of the Vinh Long police department, said Van went into shock after committing the crime and has been cared for at the Vinh Long Province General Hospital.

Yesterday, doctors conducted medical tests on Van and said the woman showed signs of “behavioral disorders” and sent her to the hospital’s mental ward, where Van later refused to eat or drink and began talking unintelligibly, Colonel Ngan said. Van’s family also reported some abnormal actions previously taken by Van, but her previous medical records showed no evidence that she has suffered from a mental disease. Van told police that she brought a knife with her when she left Ben Tre for Vinh Long at 2:00 pm on August 7. Before coming to the hospital where she met Duyen and her baby, Van had arrived at the Vinh Long Television and Radio Station to ask for support from the station’s charity division but she was turned down, the woman said. “With the evidence obtained, police have determined that this is a murder case. Officers have officially detained Van and are taking legal proceedings against her on murder charges,” Colonel Ngan concluded.

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