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Toronto Sun

Woman charged after dead babies found in Winnipeg storage locker

Woman kills 6 babies

Winnipeg Sun, by David Larkins, Wednesday, October 22, 2014

WINNIPEG - Winnipeg police now say the bodies of six babies were found in a U-Haul locker Monday afternoon and have made an arrest in connection to the horrifying incident.

Police provided an update Wednesday morning and said it was not three or four infant bodies as originally thought that were found in the storage locker.

Andrea Giesbrecht, 40, of Winnipeg, who police say also goes by Andrea Naworynski, has been charged with six counts of concealing the body of a child and one breach of probation. She was arrested at a home, police said.

The offences are alleged to have occurred between March 7 and Oct. 20.

Police spokesman Const. Eric Hofley could not provide much more detail on how the babies were killed, why they were there, or what their relation is to the accused.

Hofley said the case has not been turned over to the homicide unit because more details still need to come to light on many lingering questions.

Hofley said homicide charges have not been laid, but have not been ruled out.

"So many of the questions that I expect you have will be answered forensically," Hofley said. "As you can see by the charges laid, right now we don't have any information regarding a homicide."

Hofley said the child abuse unit is still investigating, but acknowledged finding the answers may prove difficult.

"It's early in the investigation ... some of these questions may never be answered," he said.

Court documents show Giesbrecht was convicted of fraud Sept. 30 and sentenced to two years supervised probation.

Court heard Giesbrecht approached a 73-year-old woman, a neighbour of her deceased parents, and asked for a loan to pay off the taxes on the family home.

Over the course of four visits, the woman paid Giesbrecht a total of $7,850.

"My husband warned me not to (loan her the money) but she always came by when she knew he wasn't home," the woman wrote in a victim impact statement.

Giesbrecht wrote the victim two cheques to satisfy the loan, both of which were drawn on a closed account.

Giesbrecht's fraud was motivated by a long-standing gambling addiction, court was told.

As of her sentencing date, Giesbrecht had made no effort to repay the victim, Crown attorney Manoja Moorthy said.

"It's simply unacceptable to say that all of this is to be blamed on an addiction," Moorthy said. "She is 40 years old. She certainly knows the impact this has had on the victim."

Defence lawyer Allan Libman said Giesbrecht's parents lost all their savings to gambling.

Boy, 8, found dead; mom faces charge

Canadian Press, (various newspapers across Canada, including the Toronto Star) Aug. 16, 2006.

ISLE LA MOTTE, Vt. A Montreal mother recovering from alleged self-inflicted wounds will be charged in the coming days with murdering her 8-year-old son, whose body was found in Lake Champlain, a Vermont state attorney said today.

I am going to prepare a charge of first-degree murder, Grand Isle States Attorney David Miller said in a telephone interview. Read More ..

AAP

Yeeda Topham killed her baby son but walks free

Australian Associated Press
December 05, 2008

A WOMAN who killed her infant son by jumping with him from the eighth floor of a city apartment block has walked free after being convicted of manslaughter.

Yeeda Topham, 40, of Roleystone near Perth, had pleaded guilty in the West Australian Supreme Court to a charge of unlawfully killing 21-month-old James Topham on November 5 last year.    Read More ..

Mother Charged with Killing Her Baby

Firefighters Find Baby's Body In Washing Machine

Fire Officials Claim Fire Intentionally Set

NBC4-TV, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

LOS ANGELES, USA -- Murder charges are expected to be filed against a woman whose infant son's body was found in a washing machine after firefighters doused what they say was an intentionally set fire, authorities said Tuesday.

Latunga Starks, 32, was taken into custody last night, according to the Sheriff's Department Web site.

Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Dennis Shirey identified the mother and her nearly 3-month-old son, Michael Kelvin Thompson.

Toronto Star

Mother found guilty of drowning autistic daughter

The Toronto Star, By Peter Small, Courts Bureau, March 01, 2008

Xuan (Linda) Peng has been found guilty of second-degree murder in the drowning death of her 4-year-old autistic daughter Scarlett in a bathtub in the family home.

A Superior Court jury returned its verdict Saturday morning after two days of deliberations.

Scarlett Chen was discovered unconscious by her distraught father David Chen in the tub on the second floor of the family's townhouse on Rosebank Dr., near Markham Rd. and Sheppard Ave. E. on July 12, 2004.

Peng told police that she had put their daughter down for a nap in the adjoining bedroom, and had no idea she had climbed into the bathtub, which the woman had filled with water to clean some kitchen utensils.

However, seven months later, homicide detectives charged the 36-year-old Chinese immigrant with first-degree murder. The charges were later reduced to second-degree murder. Read More ..

Woman held in beating deaths of sons

Associated Press, Globe and Mail, Tuesday, May. 13, 2003, Page A15

TYLER, TEX. -- A woman accused of fatally beating two of her sons with rocks spent Mother's Day sobbing and muttering in a jail cell.

Deanna LaJune Laney, 38, remained on suicide watch yesterday at Smith County Jail, where she was held in lieu of a $3-million (U.S.) bond on capital-murder and aggravated-assault charges.

Ms. Laney is accused of killing Joshua Laney, 8, and Luke Laney, 6, and injuring their 14-month-old brother, Aaron. The toddler remained in critical condition yesterday at a Dallas Hospital.

In a call to emergency workers early Saturday, Ms. Laney reported that she had just "bashed their heads in with a rock," Sheriff J. B. Smith said. Read More ..

Mother Shoots father, has his Baby and then kills the Baby and Herself

Investigation into the Death of Zachary Andrew Turner (18 July 2002 to 18 August 2003)

Zachary Turner, a 13 months old baby, died at the hands of his fugitive mother, Dr. Shirley Turner, who killed him and then committed suicide on August 18, 2003.

Turner was facing extradition to the United States to stand trial for the 2001 murder of Dr. Andrew Bagby, Zachary's father.

28-year-old Dr. Andrew Bagby was found shot to death in Keystone State Park, 55 kilometres northeast of Pittsburgh, PA, U.S.A.

Turner fled to Newfoundland, Canada where Zachary was born. She was out on bail against the wishes of U.S. authorities at the time of Zachary's death. Read More ..

Globe and Mail

Canada's largest national newspaper

Some mothers have had enough hugs

The Globe and Mail
October 6, 2006

Toronto - As a female friend of Frances Elaine Campione put it, this after Ms. Campione was charged on Wednesday with murder in the death of her two young children, "That mother needs a hug."

In that line, widely repeated in Toronto and national media outlets, is a telling clue to what is so wrong with much of what happens both in the nation's family courts and in its child-protection system -- the pervasive view of the female of the species as constantly nurturing (except, you know, when she allegedly kills) and as in need of constant nurture (hugs all 'round, no matter what).

For the record, Ms. Campione was arrested two days ago after she phoned 911 to report that there were two dead children inside her Barrie, Ont., apartment, and shortly after, didn't police arrive to find the bodies of her own little girls, one-year-old Sophia and three-year-old Serena.

She and her estranged husband Leo were reportedly in the throes of a nasty custody battle, with Mr. Campione accused of assaulting his wife and the older child, and Ms. Campione allegedly alarmed, and/or depressed, at the prospect of losing that fight.

And The Globe has confirmed that involved with the family was the Children's Aid Society of Simcoe County. At the moment, the nature of that involvement is unknown -- except as it has been reported by neighbours who saw social workers at the apartment and say that, for a time recently, the girls lived with their paternal grandparents.

Mothers Who Kill Their Children
Canadian Press - Mother child abuse - sentenced 16 years in jail

Ontario woman convicted of son's starvation death granted full parole

Canadian Press
Wednesday, May. 22, 2002

KINGSTON, Ont. (CP) -- An Ontario woman who was sentenced to 16 years in prison in one of Canada's stiffest penalties for child abuse will be released on full parole after serving less than half her term.

Lorelei Turner, 38, and her husband Steven were convicted of manslaughter in July 1995 for beating and starving their three-year-old son John to death in a case that horrified Canadians who followed the trial.

But on Wednesday, a panel of the National Parole Board in this eastern Ontario city ruled Turner will be released but placed on probation until July 2011.

Until then, she must remain within 25 kilometres of her residence, is not allowed unsupervised contact with anyone under 16, and must continue to receive counselling.

"The board would have looked at the risk and obviously found a low risk to reoffend," Carol Sparling of the National Parole Board said Wednesday.

Teen Girl Murders Baby

Woman accused of throwing son off Oregon bridge

Teen Girl Murders Baby
Jillian McCabe is seen in an undated photo provided by the Newport, Ore., Police Department. (Newport, Ore., Police Department)

The Associated Press, U.S.A., November 4, 2014

NEWPORT, Ore. -- A woman who said she threw her 6-year-old son off a historic bridge on the Oregon coast was arrested after the boy's body was found in the bay, police said.

Police and firefighters in the coastal city of Newport, Lincoln County deputies and the Coast Guard searched the bay with boats and a helicopter after Jillian Meredith McCabe, 34, of Seal Rock called 911 at 6:25 p.m. Monday to report throwing her son off the Yaquina Bay Bridge.

The boy's body was found at 10:23 p.m. in the bay after it was spotted near the Embarcadero Resort, police said.

Mothers Who Kill Their Own Children

AAP

Affair led to mother murdering her own kids

Days after buying another woman Valentine's Day flowers, a Sydney father came home to find a trail of blood leading him to the bodies of his two young children lying next to their mother, a court has been told.

Australian Associated Press
Aug 24 2009

The woman had given the couple's three-year-old daughter and four-year-old son rat poison and an unidentified pink liquid before smothering them and killing them, court papers said.

She then tried to take her own life, the NSW Supreme Court was told.

Doctors agree the mother, from Canley Heights in Sydney's west, was suffering from "major depression" when she poisoned her children on February 19 last year.

She has pleaded not guilty to the two murders by reason of mental illness.

As her judge-alone trial began, the mother's lawyer told Justice Clifton Hoeben his client didn't think life was worth living after learning about her husband's affair.