Accused baby killer was revered by children, court told
CanWest News Service; Edmonton Journal, Wednesday, September 20, 2006
EDMONTON - Three women who have known Katrina Effert for decades told the jury at her murder trial how she has been loved and revered by children all her life and how she returned that affection.
Effert, 20, is accused of strangling her baby last year with a pair of her thong underwear and dumping his body over a neighbour's fence within hours of secretly giving birth in the basement of her parents' Wetaskiwin, Alta., home.
Defence witness Cathy Doty testified she has known Effert all her life. She said children loved Effert.
"They loved her to pieces," said Doty, Effert's second cousin. "They didn't leave her alone. They surrounded her all the time."
In her opening statement to the jury immediately prior to Doty's testimony, defence lawyer Sheila Schumacher indicated she will base the defence of her client on psychiatric testimony which indicates Effert didn't know what she was doing in the early hours of April 14, 2005.
"You will hear evidence her mind was affected by the nightmare of giving birth the way she did in the context of an unbalanced mind," Schumacher told the jury of eight women and four men in Wetaskiwin Court of Queen's Bench.
Effert is charged with second-degree murder in the death of her baby and concealing the body. The Crown contends she killed the baby in April of 2005 shortly after giving birth and tossed the body over a fence into the neighbour's yard. She was 19 years old at the time.
Court has been told she gave birth about 4 a.m. on April 14, 2005. The baby was alive and well and she used scissors from the laundry room to cut the umbilical cord, her trial has been told.
Edmonton Journal - CanWest News Service 2006
