GoJoshGo

You have to read about these two idiots!

Internet Addicts Starved Child to Death

By Do Je-hae
Staff Reporter

A married couple was recently apprehended by the police for causing the death of their baby daughter from negligence due to an Internet game addiction. They had been on the run since their baby died from starvation five months ago in their hometown of Suwon, Gyeonggi Province.

The 41-year-old father, identified only as Kim, met and married his 25-year-old wife in 2008 through Internet chatting. The couple’s daughter was born in June 2009.

They spent from six to 12 hours at a PC room daily, engaging obsessively in games and leaving their baby alone at their home without food or care. The baby was found dead on Sept. 24.
An autopsy by the National Institute of Scientific Investigation determined that the death was mainly caused by a “lengthy period of malnourishment.”

At the time of the baby’s death, Kim made a report to the police. “When we woke up, we found that the baby had died,” he said. But the couple at the time denied charges of negligence.

After the funeral, the couple disappeared, but the policed tracked them down and arrested them on Tuesday.

During an investigation after the arrest, they admitted their role in the baby’s death and said that they have shunned PC rooms for the last five months due to a “sense of guilt.”

The baby was reportedly in good health for the first three months after birth while she was being cared for by her grandparents. But when the couple moved to Suwon, the infant spent most of the day alone with her parents away at the Internet cafes.

According to police, the baby was said to have cried all day in her nursery from hunger, but no one was around to feed her.

Infants of her age need to be fed ten times per day, but she was only given milk once or twice a day, police said. The police requested an autopsy by the National Institute of Scientific Investigation.

The couple had no stable income and were financially dependent on the wife’s parents. The police said that their addiction seems to have been a way of venting their stress and freeing themselves from money and childcare concerns.

The police found that the addicts spent their time at the PC room engaging in a role-playing game where they get to raise a female character. Players can buy clothes and accessories for the girl and keep parenting journals on blogs.

Psychology experts are calling for proper measures to help first-time parents in dealing with the stress from child-rearing.

jhdo@koreatimes.co.kr

What made these people think they were good enough to be parents in the first place? Hearing about these kinds of things disgust me so bad that I just had to post it! I think people like this should be treated to the same death that they gave to their helpless baby!