MANILA, Philippines Claiming inconsistencies in the mother's statement, police have started an investigation into the "birthday suicide" of an eight-year-old boy in Cadiz City in Negros Occidental.
Chief Inspector Jefferson Descallar, Cadiz police director, said they cannot be sure at this time if the boy committed suicide at his home in Banquerohan village on Monday afternoon.
The 30-year-old mother had said her son was declared dead at the Cadiz City Emergency Clinic after he hung himself with a belt in their kitchen at about 4:30 p.m. Monday.
She said that when boy returned from school after 4 p.m. Monday he had wanted to go out and play with his friends, but she told him to stay home and study.
She said when her son insisted, she hit him with his school flash card, causing him to cry. She went to a neighbor's house where she stayed for half an hour.
When she returned she saw her son hanging from a belt in the kitchen.
But Descallar said that when investigators arrived at the crime scene it had been "contaminated" since the child had been moved and there were many people in the house.
He also said that while the mother said her son used a belt to hang him the marks on his neck appears to be those of a small rope.
The report quoted Dr. Ma. Victoria Ibañez of the Cadiz Emergency Clinic as saying the boy had a V-shaped rope mark on his neck and multiple superficial abrasions on his lower left leg.
Descallar said the doctor was not convinced that the boy was strangled by a belt since no buckle mark was seen on his neck.
He added that if the boy committed suicide it is extraordinary since an 8-year-old is still "intrinsically" focused on survival.
Also, he said the height from which the child was supposed to be hanging would have enabled him to put his feet on a ledge in the kitchen.
He said the police will seek an autopsy of the child's body to determine his cause of death.
The mother will be questioned since she was the first to discover the body, he added.
The mother maintained that it would be impossible for her to kill her own son. - GMANews.TV