1 What is the Right Thing to Do?

The dead girl was wrapped in a shower curtain.

When the police found the package in the trunk of her stepfather's car, they noticed the little girl had a rag stuffed down her throat, secured in place with a bandage around her head.

It turned out that the rag had been put there by her mother, who, days before, had shoved the girl under a bed and left her.

Under that bed, she had died. Alone.

Her body was now on its final journey, to be dumped in a wood.

The rag would have kept her from crying—crying from abandonment, fear, hunger. At three years of age, her body weighed in at 10 kg, or about 20 lb.

How can a society accomplish justice in the aftermath of something like that? What is the right thing to do?

The mother ...

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