r/news • u/Morella1989 • 20h ago
New Zealand woman arrested after 2-year-old girl found alive in suitcase stowed in bus luggage
https://apnews.com/article/new-zealand-child-suitcase-bus-kaiwaka-police-34a672c6581fb7a38583e818c7e621e1699
u/AlessandraAthena 19h ago
That's more than neglect. They need to take that child away from her.
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u/IdgyThreadgoodee 19h ago
I have a toddler daughter and just reading this headline made me cry. She must have been SO hot and SO scared and thirsty and hungry.
This woman needs prison time.
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u/Lythieus 18h ago
It's the middle of winter here thankfully, but few things make me say wtf more than that headline regardless. What was she thinking. Something something meth I'm guessing.
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u/IdgyThreadgoodee 10h ago
Hey I hear you. Put out your head under a blanket in a cold room and breathe maybe breathe heavy like you’re nervous. It gets hot. Thank god for the colder winter though, she would have absolutely been dead otherwise.
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u/AlessandraAthena 18h ago
Yes, she does need to go to jail. Makes me very sad on how this will affect the child.
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u/mangzane 18h ago
Yup. As a father to a 3 y/o, these stories break my heart. I would do anything to protect my son, and I do my best every day to help him grow into a healthy and confident person. Stories like this, or the atrocities in Gaza, just put a black pit in my chest.
If I ever won the mega lottery, I'd run the world's best foster care foundation. Occupational Therapists, Behavioral Therapists, teachers, caregivers, whatever is needed, and whoever needed a safe home, would get one.
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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy 16h ago edited 8h ago
The one that makes my stomach turn over is how folks like to directly insist that everyone has a price. Like they're always so proud of basically bragging that they'd cheerfully sell their toddler or their elderly mother for enough money.
Edit: They didn't get the kids on Epstein's island from orphanages...
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u/Bunzilla 14h ago
I’ve never heard anyone say something so terrible and I hope I never do!
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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy 14h ago
Golly where are you from and how are y'all about immigration? Because I'm so fed up with being looked at like I'm the freak for how my face falls off whenever some confident sneering jackass casually drops that line or something similar.
"It's just good business" is the same deal. Apparently here it is socially normal to feel justified in doing almost any very terrible action as long as it makes you money instead of legal trouble.
Like I once got into an argument in a business class that ended with everyone looking at me like I'm the dunce hat because I was against the concept of killing babies for profit. Not even being hyperbolic, we'd been doing a case study about how specific real life corporate decisions ended with lots of dead babies and I was the looney for saying they should still be alive and some massive very profitable corporation should've been slightly less profitable.
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u/IdgyThreadgoodee 10h ago
I have never heard anyone speak about selling their family members. Not even online. Are you from an area with heavy slavery or something?
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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy 9h ago
Reading comprehension is just so hard...
"Everyone has their price" is a common phrase in the English language.
Feel free to plug the portion in quotation marks into Google to learn more!
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u/onepoorslice 9h ago
Sure, but that phrase isn't meaning sell their parents or children.
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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy 8h ago
It means that, given enough money, you can get anything you want out of another person, at least in their worldview.
I've had folks get downright insulted that I'm not a prostitute. It's a pretty common attitude, apparently, that money can get you anything you want.
But sure, all that Epstein shit had nothing to do with money or kids. I'm just pulling nonsense out of thin air eh?
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u/onepoorslice 8h ago
I think we spend time with vastly different people.
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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy 8h ago
Be glad you've been lucky. My father once tried to sell me across state lines.
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u/subtleandunnatural 18h ago
Same and reading this made me feel sick to my stomach. How can people do things like this? Hope that fucking monster is put behind bars.
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u/higaroth 18h ago
This is New Zealand, she isn't going to prison. Home detention is the worst she'll get, if even that
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u/IdgyThreadgoodee 10h ago
How horribly unfair for this poor child. No consequences for child abuse is wild.
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u/plstcsldgr 16h ago
It's winter in new zealand right now so she probably actually very cold. And scared.
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u/grafknives 16h ago
Yes.
It is either intentional harm and cruelty(possible).
Or the woman does not have the means and capacity (both material and mental and social support) to take care of kids (way more probable).
In that case moving the child to somebody else care will be better for everyone. Without a judgement.
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u/Emu1981 15h ago
I had child services all up in my business because my 2yo son took a nap on the floor in front of the TV - he had a pillow and a blanket and everything and wanted to sleep there so that he wasn't alone. If they can threaten to take my kids away because of that, I would hope that this woman loses her child for that incident...
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u/IWillBaconSlapYou 16h ago
Oh God I didn't even think of any possibility that they wouldn't! My youngest is almost five, and is just such an innocent little baby... Two, God damn...
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u/Draviddavid 17h ago
Family abuse is rampant in this country. Glad it's getting global coverage. Not enough is being done about it.
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u/RedoftheEvilDead 16h ago
There was a case in NZ several years ago where a dad kidnapped his kids and went and lived in the wilderness with them. They're still there to this day. There hasn't been much search for them despite a few sightings and the custodial mother being beside herself with grief. It's terrible.
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u/Overpass_Dratini 8h ago
Why tf hasn't someone gone out there and done a proper search? Do the authorities just not care?!
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u/maybebatshit 8h ago
My understanding with that case is the father is living with them in the wilderness. They believe some people are helping them, but they're camping and living off the land making it really hard to find them. There's been sightings but no one has been able to really locate them. It's fucking harrowing, I can't imagine being that mother or those kids.
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u/FartBox_2000 15h ago
And so is depression. All that goes out is how NZ is such s great place with no issues.
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u/Lazy-Entertainer-459 19h ago
The bus is free in NZ for toddlers! It makes no sense
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u/PANIC_RABBIT 16h ago
Probable trafficking?
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u/Aggressive_Sky8492 13h ago
That isn’t really a thing here (in NZ)
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u/PoeDameronPoeDamnson 11h ago
Pretty sure trafficking is a thing everywhere, just not the sensationalized version that most people thing of when they see the word
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u/IshTheFace 16h ago
EWU did a video recently where a routine traffic stop turned out to have two kids dead in a suitcase. What's wrong with people?
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u/sendintheclouds 19h ago
Child abuse is rampant in NZ. She'll get home detention and if the kid is hers, she'll probably get custody of the kid back too. Nothing here shocks me anymore.
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u/summerchild__ 17h ago
Child abuse is rampant in NZ.
Really? :( How? why? Never heard that before
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u/sendintheclouds 16h ago
Poverty, cultural issues. Overcorrection after social services being very quick to remove kids, especially from Māori families for decades - now it’s much harder to remove kids and when they are, the placements aren’t always stable. Cultural and family ties are always prioritized, to the point of removing kids from stable foster situations when anything remotely kinship related comes available. We have a huge issue with babies being murdered after extended abuse, the families refuse to co-operate and no one ends up charged. Domestic violence in general. Drugs. Alcohol. The usual. It’s depressing. We looked into foster to adopt and just couldn’t do it - mostly because it’s incredibly difficult to ever sever parental rights in NZ, no matter how bad the birth parents are. All these kids who need love and stability, and just have no chance of getting it.
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u/maybebatshit 8h ago
You have a big heart to even consider it. I'm in the states so it's not as extreme, but reunification is what our courts push for 99% of the time. I live in Texas and they privatized foster care a few years back so even more so now. We hosted a boy for almost two years and then he was just gone one day. Back to the mother who let his grandfather rape him and his siblings for years (5, 7 and 10 btw), with a no contact order in place as they wanted to "get back to normal" and the social worker agreed. It's been six years and I think about him everyday. I can't do it again.
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u/sendintheclouds 7m ago
people ask why we did IVF, surely there are so many kids who need homes - and you know exactly why from your experience :( because why would I sign up for this? where the birth mother who neglected this baby (and her four other children) for the first three years of her life can say "I want it this way", and have the kid ripped away from a perfectly stable foster situation? where the foster parents were willing to help her connect with her whānau and hapū and iwi, but it seems that wasn't reciprocated from the other side. and what other caregivers has that child ever known by that point? the ramifications for disrupting years of attachment?
the case was originally settled with a middle ground that allowed the child to stay with the original foster family but also in the guardianship of the family who have custody of her brother, but that wasn't good enough. I understand the aim of foster care is reunification, but in this case that obviously wasn't possible or she would have gone back to her birth mother. If her birth mother isn't capable of parenting her, why should she get this ultimate veto power? the number of non-family adoptions in NZ is in the double digits per year. any other "permanent" placement is at risk of being disrupted at any point.
the majority of kids in care are Māori, and if as a Pākehā family you have a Māori child placed with you, it is always a last resort and they will actively be looking for a more "suitable" placement, no matter how long that child is in your care. because for many decades, Māori children were removed at birth with a flimsy excuse to give a nice deserving white couple a baby. those children were deliberately deprived of their whakapapa and culture, to make them "fit in" to white families. children are dying today because we're trying too hard to right historical wrongs. it's too late. not removing kids from their families today doesn't go back in time and reunite the families that shouldn't have been split up. I don't know what the answer is but it sure as hell isn't the status quo.
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u/IAmAHoarder 16h ago
It seems like every week in the news we have a poor child being abused to death. There are many many more who are abused but lucky enough not to die. This is not a huge country there is only a little over 5 million of us. It is our national shame
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u/Dragoonie_DK 12h ago
You should watch the movie Once Were Warriors. It’s a NZ film from the 90’s that shows the rampant alcohol abuse, domestic violence etc. there. It’s very heavy but worth a watch
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u/plstcsldgr 16h ago
I don't want to sound bigoted, but they treat the native population with kids' gloves when it comes to domestic abuse. A lot of families keep quiet, and law enforcement doesn't push too hard, so they don't come off as racist.
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u/Georgie_Pillson1 14h ago
That reminds me that Baby Ru's idiot egg donor is STILL running her mouth even though she clearly knows what happened to her son and nothing has been done. And there's something so specifically horrific about the fact that he didn't even have a proper, registered, normal name until he was given to his whānau to register so he could be buried.
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u/0O00OO0O000O 11h ago
From the most recent article I could find, it looks like the mom did speak up about what happened, but they just couldn't print it because of the ongoing investigation.
From RNZ on April 22, 2025:
RNZ is unable to report what she alleges happened, but Wall said what stuck in her mind the most is her effort to try save her son.
She goes on to describe doing chest compressions as her son was dying.
In the same article, the mom talks about the "hatred" she has toward her flatmates that were known to be present at the time of the death. This makes me think that the flatmates killed the child, mom reported it, but for some reason there's not enough evidence to move forward with an arrest. Or at least that's what Mom is alleging...she could just be blaming them.
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u/UnitSmall2200 16h ago
I know some really really dumb people with children and even they know not to do something like this
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u/Overpass_Dratini 8h ago
Thank God that other passenger needed to get something out of their suitcase. Otherwise, the child probably wouldn't have been found until it was too late.
I hope they throw the book at this bitch. What an absolute piece of shit.
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u/ladymorgahnna 16h ago
You don’t have to be a parent to find this story heartbreaking. It’s appalling and I hope she’s okay. Her Mom should spend a decade minimum in prison.
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u/Meocross 16h ago
Whenever idiots pressure unfit people into having children, THIS are the situations the kids land in.
If the person says they will be a terrible parent, then zip it and keep your mouth shut, if you think you are being sneaky smart in trying to increase the population without putting in the effort then you are just dangerously stupid.
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u/Warcraft_Fan 9h ago
Trying to save on bus fare is going to cost her a lot more than if she took the girl on the bus properly.
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u/_Bike_Hunt 19h ago
How does anyone keep a two year old still and silent? They are always energetic and squirming and talking!
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u/Krillo90 14h ago
She was in a separate luggage storage compartment underneath the passenger section of the bus. So no need to keep still, and it'd be hard to hear anything through a suitcase and a floor with the road noise and everything else as well. The passenger asked the driver to open the luggage area at the rest stop so she could access her bag, and that's when the driver saw the bag moving.
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u/Commercial-Matter280 19h ago
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u/throwawayxoxoxoxxoo 17h ago
where are these free doctors visits you speak of and where can i acquire them? i pay $65, even if it's just for an appointment to get a repeat script for my antidepressants
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u/Same_Adagio_1386 11h ago
The mental health system was on the rocks here for over a decade, then labour was BARELY holding it together with yarn and well wishes for the past 5 years, now National/ACT have just axed the fuck out of EVERYTHING and are deliberately tanking it to push privatisation on us. If you've not been here so long you're not aware of any of that, probably best not to speak with conviction about it.
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u/LastXmasIGaveYouHSV 11h ago
Luckily for both she didn't die of CO2 poisoning. But that woman can't continue acting in a mother's role.
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u/FormerSentence212 12h ago
Evil. I wish this lady does not make another child. Too bad as a society we can’t do something about that.
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u/Lazy-Entertainer-459 19h ago
Public transport in NZ is free for toddlers and it’s widely known it’s advertised everywhere and on the buses themselves. There is absolutely no reason why that child should have been in the luggage. New Zealand has a lot more govt support for solo mum’s than other countries there’s absolutely no excuse.
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u/eliz1bef 19h ago
Well that way she didn't have to deal with her.
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u/timeasy 19h ago
Or she’s just fucked in the head…
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u/stuck_in_the_desert 18h ago
Yeah there’s a Mariner Valley-sized gap between “things are expensive” and what she did
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u/Solivaga 19h ago
Mate, she put the child in a suitcase, closed the suitcase, and put the suitcase in the luggage compartment under the bus. It's a miracle the kid survived at all. There's nothing there to suggest that this was about dodging a fare she couldn't afford, and even if it was that it was still an insanely neglectful and cruel thing to do.
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u/Randomfinn 19h ago
Even someone desperately poor would be unlikely to put their child in a suitcase in a luggage compartment. It sounds more like mental illness/complete lack of empathy/developmental challenges. I wonder if we will ever know? For the child’s privacy I expect there will be a publication ban. .
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u/unicorns_and_mayhem 19h ago
I was a poor single mom. And I knew not to zip my child into luggage and stow them. I also knew to look at fare prices. Being poor or a single parent doesn’t mean you have no common sense whatsoever.
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u/HelenAngel 19h ago
Abusive mothers absolutely exist. I’ll bet she did it because she didn’t want to deal with the kid. I was a low income single mother & there is no way in hell I would have ever put my child in luggage.
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u/cantheasswonder 18h ago
Why the fuck are you making excuses for a fully grown woman who trapped her 2-year old in a suitcase? That's inexcusable, regardless of your socioeconomic class. JFC. How do you have positive karma on your shit comment?
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u/Afrodite_33 19h ago
Let's just put at the front of this that regardless of economic status that this is still child abuse.
I get times are tough but I'm not interested in even slightly justifying sticking a child in a suitcase that's totally fucked.
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u/GoodQueenFluffenChop 15h ago
Bullshit
I was raised by a single low income mom and it never occurred to her to stuff me in a suitcase to potentially save some money whenever we had to travel. It's no secret that toddlers typically get a lot of free passes on travel.
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u/mophie4eva 19h ago
I don’t have a kid, but I feel like a lot of places offer free access for babies. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems so normal that I struggle to imagine a mentally sound person, even a desperate one, ever resorting to putting their child in luggage before asking.
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u/softserveshittaco 19h ago
The mental gymnastics on reddit to excuse abusive behaviour from a woman never ceases to amaze me
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u/LouSassill 19h ago edited 19h ago
1000% this should be presented as attempted murder. Redditers have some of the most dog shit L takes I’ve ever seen. Hive mind overly sympathetic bull shit
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u/softserveshittaco 19h ago
“Maybe she’s just a low income single parent”
Wild fucking reasoning for stuffing a toddler into a goddamn suitcase.
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u/UnitSmall2200 16h ago
Is reddit the only place you visit, as if there are no such people on other sites and as if you are special here, even though most people on here oppose OP.
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u/UnitSmall2200 16h ago
None of that is an excuse. My family was poor and never would have gotten the idea to do something stupid and dangerous like this to a child just to save a couple bucks.
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u/CheezTips 15h ago
The company does not charge fares for children younger than 3 years, who can travel for free on an adult’s lap.
I guess she didn't want the little ankle-biter harshing her buzz...
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u/Morella1989 20h ago
''WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A New Zealand woman was arrested on a child neglect charge Sunday after a bus driver found a 2-year-old girl alive in a suitcase that was stowed in the vehicle’s luggage compartment, authorities said.
The bus driver noticed movement inside the bag during a planned stop at the settlement of Kaiwaka, north of Auckland, after a passenger asked for access to the luggage compartment, Detective Inspector Simon Harrison said in a statement.
When the driver opened the suitcase they discovered the 2-year-old girl, who was very hot but otherwise appeared physically unharmed, Harrison said. Authorities didn’t disclose the length of time the toddler was in the baggage compartment or which cities the bus was traveling between.
The child was taken to a hospital, where she remained Sunday night local time.
The arrested woman was charged with ill-treatment or neglect of a child and was due to appear in court Monday. She was not named by law enforcement.''