Quebec woman charged with killing 3 of her babies

MONTREAL• A 27- year-old woman from Ste-Marthesur-le-Lac, Que., has been charged with the first-degree murder of three of her own newborn babies.

The woman appeared Thursday afternoon at the St-Jérôme courthouse. She has been ordered held until her next court appearance Dec. 7.

One of the murder charges relates to a death this month, while the other two are dated between December 2014 and February 2017.

The woman also faces charges of disposing of the body of a child between December 2014 and October 2017 with the intention of hiding the fact that she had given birth, failing to provide the necessities of life, and corruption of a child by committing an immoral act in front of a child.

The woman is the mother of a fourth child.

Quebec Police spokesman Marc Tessier said the woman went to a hospital in distress on Oct. 15. Doctors examining her realized she had recently given birth, and since the baby was not with her, they contacted Deux-Montagnes police.

Members of that force went to the woman’s home in Ste-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, a small Montreal suburb on the north shore of Lac des Deux Montagnes, where they found evidence that was suspicious, Tessier said.

The case was then trans- ferred to Quebec Police investigators, who conducted a more thorough search of the house on Oct. 16, Tessier said.

“That’s when the police officers found the remains of three newborns, from three different pregnancies,” Tessier said.

Police said that according to their testing, there was not an issue of miscarriages or pregnancy complications in the case.

The woman was hospitalized for several days, and then released, Tessier said.

On Nov. 1, police arrested the woman in Trois-Rivières, and she is expected to face three charges of firstdegree murder, as well as other unspecified charges, he said.

One of her neighbours said he never saw more than one child at the house. “They kept to themselves,” he said. “Never had an issue with her.”