How 53-year-old Mother Killed Her Own Newborn Babies by Drowning Them In Concrete

Mayumi Saito, a 53-year-old woman has confessed to police that she drowned four babies in concrete-filled buckets because she was too poor to look after them.

According to Metro UK, the woman handed her self in two decades after killing the babies, telling them she had felt guilt for not caring for them.


She was arrested today on charges of abandoning bodies, a day after she went to Osaka police station to admit what she had done.

A police official said human bones were identified in buckets found in her condominium.

Saito was quoted by police as saying she put the bodies into concrete from 1992 through 1997 because she had been too poor to raise them, but she had been filled with guilt.

The police official requested anonymity due to department policy. Saito had a part-time job, but details of her work and family were not available.

The causes of the babies’ deaths were unclear. It is fairly standard in Japan for criminal charges to be added later as an investigation progresses.

Although Japan is the world’s third-largest economy and has a reputation as being economically advanced, poverty remains a problem, especially among women.

Social support such as affordable daycare is lacking for women to work while child-rearing, as well as to get counseling and other help to cope with parenting duties and mental stress.

Japanese media reports quoted the woman as saying she had no one to talk to or turn to.