Indonesian women takes her child "to see heaven"

JAKARTA, Mar 12: A wealthy Indonesian women who fell on hard times filmed her four children with her mobile phone after poisoning them, and then committed suicide -- leaving a note saying she was taking them ''to see heaven''.

The 35-year old woman recorded the dying moments of the children -- aged 11 to one-and-a-half years old -- with her mobile phone and the device was found near her head yesterday, detective Deky Hermansyah of the Malang city police said.

''The family was quite affluent until October two year ago when the husband's business went bankrupt and he had to find work in Surabaya which made him rarely come home to Malang,'' the police inspector told Reuters.

Surabaya, East Java's provincial capital, is a two-hour drive from Malang.

Hermansyah said the mother appeared to have poisoned the children's cereal before taking her own life.

He said the woman had told neighbours she could not live in poverty after years of having a well-to-do lifestyle.

Police also found capsules of drugs and suicide letters that included one to her husband, state Antara news agency said. In one of the letters, the woman asked her husband to cremate the bodies after dressing them in favourite outfits, it said.

''I have taken all the children to let them see heaven,'' The Jakarta Post newspaper also quoted a letter as saying.

REUTERS