Mom of dead babies expects to be incarcerated: report

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This article was published 07/07/2017 (3333 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg mother convicted of hiding the bodies of six babies in a rented storage locker expects she’ll spend time behind bars.

Andrea Giesbrecht, 43, kept her thoughts to herself during a lengthy criminal trial that ended with a judge finding her guilty on six counts of concealing a child’s body. Their decayed remains were kept in a McPhillips Street storage unit for years.

Provincial court Judge Murray Thompson will sentence her July 14. On Friday, Giesbrecht appeared in court for sentencing submissions.

The Crown told the judge he should sentence Giesbrecht to an almost-maximum 11-year sentence. Defence lawyer Greg Brodsky suggested Giesbrecht should serve no more time behind bars because already spent 168 days in custody following her arrest in 2014.

He reminded the court that Giesbrecht is being sentenced only on concealing the remains and not on anything to do with how the infants died.

Giesbrecht has not offered any explanation for her actions, and is not legally required to do so.

A pre-sentence report filed in court Friday said she believes she’s “on borrowed time,” and will find herself back in custody.

“I’ve been found guilty of a pretty serious crime,” she told the Probation Services official.

The report didn’t delve into how she feels about the offences. The mother of two declined to share information related to her history with pregnancy and abortion, other than to say she’s been pregnant “quite a few times” — about 16 times, the report said.

Her husband also refused to discuss the matter with Probation Services.

“While discussing victim empathy, the subject (Giesbrecht) commented, ‘The concealment charge itself of an infant says it all.’ She also mentioned, ‘I think everyone’s affected, like my kids,” the report states.

Before charges were laid, Giesbrecht was a church-going mom with an admitted gambling problem who had worked with special-needs children and regularly volunteered.

While out on bail, she has worked in data collection, has taken several online education courses and hopes to reunite with her husband and teenage sons.

“I really didn’t think I would be out this long,” she said in the report. “I’ve been away from home for two years already.”

She told the report writer she’s never been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder but she said she suspects she may have a mental-health condition.

“Just ’cause I’m all over the place,” she said. “I would call it (being) distracted easily.”

Judge Thompson’s sentence will be broadcast live. It’s been described as the “worst case” of concealing infants’ remains in Canadian law because of the number of fetuses involved.

Crown attorney Debbie Buors said an 11-year prison term is warranted because Giesbrecht’s actions were calculated and she has shown no remorse.

“There’s a strong need to separate Ms. Giesbrecht from society,” Buors argued Friday.

Although Giesbrecht was convicted of two counts of fraud in relation to her gambling addiction, Buors told court the mother of two had a childhood free from violence or substance abuse. Her background doesn’t explain how she could commit such crimes, Buors said.

“There’s absolutely no explanation. She had a very normal, untroubled upbringing,” she said.

The six counts carry a maximum sentence of two years each for a total of 12 years. Brodsky said his client has been doing well while out on bail, noting bail supervision workers at the Elizabeth Fry Society wrote a letter in support of Giesbrecht, describing her as well-mannered and honest. She’s been assessed by Probation Services as a low risk to reoffend.

Because the remains were so badly decayed, investigators couldn’t determine the cause of death. Giesbrecht was convicted on the basis that she knew they would likely be born alive. By hiding the remains, “she thwarted a proper investigation,” which strikes at the heart of the criminal offence at hand, Buors said.

“She showed no respect to these remains,” Buors said, noting some of the decomposed remains were found encased in a concrete-like substance and were bagged up and left in plastic storage totes. “They were just left to rot.”

The Crown questioned Giesbrecht’s level of empathy for the victims of the crime, saying she has never shown remorse.

“There was no dignity given to those individuals, those fetuses,” Buors said. The Crown also asked the judge to place Giesbrecht on the child-abuse registry.

Brodsky told the judge he took issue with the Crown’s suggestion Giesbrecht hadn’t shown empathy for the fetuses.

The fetuses are not victims, he said. “The victim is (Giesbrecht’s) husband and the public.”

“She didn’t murder these children. There was no live birth,” Brodsky said.

The judge ruled each of the babies — five boys and one girl — was likely born alive.

During a lengthy trial that wrapped up in October, three medical experts testified the babies were likely born alive. Their decomposed remains — some no more than bones — were found in garbage bags contained in plastic containers inside the storage unit in October 2014. All the fetuses, including one that was partly mummified, were found to be between 34 and 42 weeks gestation.

During the trial, the Crown called evidence from Giesbrecht’s husband, Jeremy Giesbrecht, and former friends to paint a picture of her secrecy about her pregnancies. No one, not even her husband, knew she carried the six fetuses nearly to term.

The trial began in April and ended in early October, with several delays in between, and Giesbrecht was found guilty in February.

On Friday, Brodsky raised the possibility of objecting to the length of time it took the case took to move through the court. But no delay motion has been filed. It was initially reported the charges against Giesbrecht could be upgraded to include homicide offences, but that never happened. A charge of failing to provide the necessaries of life was dropped shortly before Giesbrecht’s trial.

During the trial, the Crown said it couldn’t prove its theory the babies died after they were dumped in plastic kitchen bags, which were then knotted at the top.

Brodsky had suggested the six babies may have been stillborn, but he didn’t challenge a medical expert’s evidence the chances of that happening were one in 500 trillion.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay