Girl with 10 nails stuck in skull dies

A 3-year-old girl who had 10 nails driven into her skull by her mother’s lover died on Saturday evening, after two months of treatment, the Hanoi-based Saint Paul Hospital reported.

Authorities found 10 nails, about 2cm long, in her skull after an autopsy.

Back to January 17 afternoon, when the mother discovered that her daughter was in poor health and nausea, she called a taxi to take her to Thach That District Hospital on Hanoi’s outskirts for emergency.

Here, the doctor determined that the baby was in a deep coma, had convulsions all over the body and was initially diagnosed with meningitis, with nine nails in her skull causing swelling.

After an hour of admission, the baby was transferred to Saint Paul General Hospital in Hanoi’s center, and the doctor predicted a “very serious condition”.

She is the third child of her parents who divorced in early 2021 after more than 10 years of marriage. Three months before entering Saint Paul Hospital, she was hospitalized four times due to “a nose wound, swallowing three screws, broken arm and poisoning from pesticides”. In which, the most severe time was related to pesticides, when the baby was comatose and hospitalized for many days.

On January 20, the investigative police arrested Nguyen Trung Huyen, 30, on suspicion of his using nails to torture the baby, the daughter of his lover.

He has been put under investigation for allegedly commiting a murder under Article 123 of the Criminal Code.

According to the initial investigation, Huyen had been living with the woman and her daughter since September 2021 at a rented house in the rural district of Thach That in Hanoi. Huyen said that the appearance of her lover’s 3-year-old daughter affected her private life, “arousing his intention to torture so as not to nurture”.

He tortured the girl on four occasions with many cruel tricks. The last time was around 8:00 a.m. on January 17, when only two people were left at home. Huyen said he asked the baby, but the girl did not answer, so he slapped her and used nails to torture her.

In another case that similarly angered the public, on the evening of December 22, Vinmec Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City received an 8-year-old girl in circulatory arrest, with many bruises. She had actually died before being brought to the hospital by his biological father.

On December 23, the investigative police of Binh Thanh district determined that Nguyen Vo Quynh Trang, 26, had signs of violence against the girl leading to her death. The fiancé of the girl’s father was arrested urgently. On December 31, authorities arrested the baby’s father to investigate signs of accomplices.

The Representative of the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in Vietnam, Rana Flowers, in late December expressed her sorrow and deep concern over the death of the 8-year-old girl.

On the organisation’s website, she said: “Sadly, the majority of abuse is perpetrated by someone known and trusted by the child. Shrouded in silence, alone. The rising accounts of abuse of children, even greater during COVID lockdowns, signal an urgent need for a strengthened approach.”