The whereabouts of Ms. A (32), a naturalized woman of Vietnamese origin who was indicted without detention on charges of abandoning a stillborn baby in a refrigerator freezer out of fear that her extramarital affair would be exposed, are unknown. Accordingly, the Cheongju District Court is proceeding with the trial by public notice service.

According to the legal community on the 17th, the single-judge panel of Criminal Division 4 of the Cheongju District Court attempted four times, from November last year to January this year, to serve the indictment on Ms. A, who was indicted without detention on charges of abandoning a corpse, but all attempts failed.

When an indictment is filed, it is served on the defendant, and the defendant submits a written opinion to the court; this is the usual procedure.

However, because Ms. A could not be located at her originally registered address, service of the indictment failed.

Concluding that Ms. A had effectively gone on the run, the bench issued an arrest warrant ex officio in March, but prosecutors who moved to execute the warrant likewise could not determine her whereabouts.

The court ultimately decided last month to proceed by public notice service.

Subsequently, on the 13th, about a year after the indictment, the first hearing was held without Ms. A present.

Service by public notice is a method whereby, when the addressee cannot be located, the court posts the content on a bulletin board or in the official gazette and deems it served.

Ms. A was indicted without detention on charges of abandoning the body in a refrigerator freezer after delivering alone a stillborn baby (a fetus at 21∼25 weeks) in the bathroom of her home in the North Chungcheong region on January 15 last year.

About a month later, the body was accidentally discovered by her mother-in-law while cleaning, and Ms. A fled by car that evening but was arrested by police the following day on a highway in Naju, South Jeolla Province.

During the police investigation at the time, she reportedly stated, “I hid the baby in the freezer because I feared that my husband, with whom I had been living in separate rooms for a long time, would discover the affair.”

Prosecutors, judging that there was a high risk of flight, sought an arrest warrant for Ms. A, but the court at the time dismissed the request, saying, “She was cooperative during the investigation and there is no additional risk of flight.”