Newborn baby found dead on Silver Whisper cruise ship, Filipino mother charged with murder. The terrible news was reported by Rainews, ANSA, Adnkronos, and the major newspapers in Italy and Europe, sailing in the Tyrrhenian Sea; the mother, a 28-year-old Filipina, accused of voluntary homicide: these, according to the first information filtered by the Grosseto Prosecutor’s Office, are the details of a fact on which several unclear aspects remain. The woman, now in custody, is a member of the crew of the luxury ship Silver Whisper where, according to what has been learned, she carries out cooking and cleaning duties.
The woman allegedly hid her pregnancy so as not to lose her job
It seems that the woman kept her pregnancy hidden, perhaps fearing she would lose her job. And when the baby was born, she would not ask anyone for help, keeping him hidden in the accommodation cabin (which she shared with other colleagues). And it is news recently that two other women, colleagues of the 28-year-old, were arrested: these are precisely those who shared the cabin where the birth would have taken place with the young mother and who, according to what was learned, would have helped the colleague to give birth and to hide the newborn’s little body from the rest of the crew. The two, of Kenyan and South African nationality, were arrested on charges of complicity in voluntary homicide.
The alarm went off yesterday, off the coast of Argentario
At certain times of the day, from what we learned, the child would have been hidden in the cabin locker. However, the rumor of the presence of a newborn would have spread among the seafarers, some would have even heard cries coming from the cabin. Yesterday, Sunday 19 May, the alarm went off, probably because the child stopped breathing. Only then would the mother admit the fact, revealing the situation and asking for help. At that time, the ship was off the coast of Argentario, in the province of Grosseto.
The ship’s captain instructed the ship’s officer to notify the shore authorities of the neighboring country (in this case, Italy); the police and the port authority were alerted. The ship was then reached by patrol boats with soldiers on board, who boarded and, with the collaboration of the boat managers, carried out the inspection in the cabin and other rooms. The 28-year-old was in shock.
The mother would not have breast-fed the child, who perhaps died of starvation
The young mother was accused of causing the child’s death through omissions, by not giving him the care appropriate to his newborn status. An initial external examination, at the moment, would lead the medical examiner to exclude that the death was caused by external acts such as suffocation, just as the doctors who intervened on site would not have found any signs attributable to strangulation. It is plausible, it is hypothesized, that the child was left in the cabin for hours, without receiving the assistance required for a newborn and above all without breastfeeding. It cannot be ruled out that the child died of starvation.
The child’s body was wrapped in sheets, placed in the cot assigned to the woman, where she would probably have given birth. It was not possible to establish when the child was born but, according to initial reports, perhaps even two days before. The Grosseto prosecutor’s office has ordered an autopsy to shed light on the causes of death. The test will have to establish whether the woman gave birth in the ninth month of pregnancy or whether the baby was born prematurely and would have needed an incubator.
Once released from hospital, the woman was taken to Sollicciano prison
The woman was discharged this afternoon from the Grosseto hospital and transferred to the Sollicciano prison, in Florence, while the ship, after checks, resumed navigation and is now stopped in Portoferraio, on the Island of Elba. The hearing to validate the arrest has not yet been set. With the 28 year old, also the two colleagues who would have helped her.
The Silver Whisper ship is used for luxury cruises. She is 180 meters long, and built in the Genoa shipyards, flying the flag of the Bahamas. She can accommodate 350 people, including 280 crew. Just in recent days she had gone to Sorrento then to Positano and Amalfi on the Amalfi Coast. What a pain
