Baby dies while mother parties out for a week

The little girl was so hungry she tried to eat washing powder.

A 21-year-old Russian mother is branded 'evil' by neighbours for starving her three-year-old daughter to death while she went on partying for a week.
Maria Plenkina confessed to murdering her daughter, Kristina, whom she left alone at home, from February 13 to 20, last year. The court was told that the little girl was so hungry she tried to eat washing powder after eating the small of amount of yoghurt, chicken and sausages her mother had left her.
According to reports in Daily Mail, Kristina's grandmother, Irina Plenkina, 47, who had come to wish her a happy third birthday, found her lifeless naked body in a cold room in a rubbish-strewn flat. The girl's mother had also turned off the water in the flat.
She now faces from eight to 20 years in jail for the cruel murder of her child with whom she lived in the Russian city of Kirov. She had split with her boyfriend just before she went off on her week-long spree.
A criminal investigation into 'murder with extreme cruelty' proved that Plenkina locked her daughter in the flat. Psychiatrists found that she was 'sane' and 'fully aware of her actions', the court was told. While in detention, the mother did not cry and showed no regret, said law enforcement sources.
The child's distraught grandmother said she could have cared for the child if only she knew her daughter was leaving. "She lied to me that everything was fine. I never thought that Maria could do such a thing," the grandmother said, adding that there was never any sign of previous abuse.
"She has shown the highest class of professional acting - if you deceive everyone to such an extent. I completely did not know my daughter, it turns out," the grieving grandmother said.