Verdict expected for Winnipeg woman accused of hiding dead babies in locker

WINNIPEG — A judge in Manitoba is to give his decision Monday in the case of a woman charged with disposing of the remains of six infants in a storage locker.

The Crown has painted Andrea Giesbrecht as a woman who took great pains to hide the remains and her pregnancies, while the defence has argued that she was saving the bodies — not disposing of them.

Giesbrecht pleaded not guilty to six counts of disposing of a body of a dead child with intent to conceal the delivery. The offence under Section 243 of the Criminal Code carries a jail term of up to two years.

The verdict by provincial court Judge Murray Thompson is to be live-streamed from the Winnipeg courthouse by media outlets.

Giesbrecht, 42, was arrested in October 2014 after employees at a U-Haul storage facility alerted police. Officers found the remains in garbage bags and other containers inside a locker she had rented.

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Medical experts testified at her trial that DNA linked the infants to Giesbrecht and her husband. They said the babies were at or near full term and were probably born alive, but were so badly decomposed it was impossible to say for sure. They also couldn’t determine how the babies died.

One child was put in a pail under concrete, while another was covered in a white powder that slowed decomposition but dried out the body and left it rock hard.

A third infant was little more than a pile of bones wrapped in a towel.

Crown attorney Debbie Buors said in her closing arguments that cement and detergent were used in some of the containers “to mask the smell of these remains so that employees of U-Haul wouldn’t become suspicious.”

She said towels, blankets and other household items stored with the remains also showed that the infants were probably born at Giesbrecht’s home before they were taken to the storage locker.

“Clearly she had control and possession of these human remains.”

The trial also heard that Giesbrecht, a mother of two, had 10 legal abortions between 1994 and 2011, as well as a miscarriage. A friend told court that Giesbrecht hid her pregnancies by wearing baggy clothes.

Her husband testified he was unaware of the six pregnancies connected to the charges. Jeremy Giesbrecht also said he thought his wife was hoarding furniture in the storage locker.

Defence lawyer Greg Brodsky didn’t call any witnesses.

“These products of conception were never meant to be concealed,” Brodsky said during closing arguments.

“To make sure they’re kept in a storage locker … is saving, not disposing. It’s the opposite of disposing.”

The Canadian Press