Canadian mum jailed for 8.5 years for hiding bodies of 6 babies

WINNIPEG, Manitoba: A Canadian mother who hid the decomposing remains of her six babies in a storage locker was sentenced on Friday to eight and a half years in jail, as a judge said her actions must be denounced.

Andrea Giesbrecht, 43, was convicted in February of six counts of concealing the body of a child in 2014. Staff at storage company U-Haul, a subsidiary of Amerco, discovered the stinking bodies in her locker after she fell behind on payments.

Police then found the remains of five boys and a girl, ranging in gestational ages of 34 to 42 weeks, in garbage bags, plastic bins and pails, along with children’s toys and clothing.

One infant’s remains were encased in concrete and another’s in a detergent-like powder.

The advanced decomposition of the infants’ bodies prevented determination of the cause of death and discovery of any evidence that they were born alive, preventing possible homicide charges, Judge Murray Thompson said in a Winnipeg, Manitoba, court.

Thompson added that he accepted expert testimony that the infants likely were born alive.

Thompson said the gruesome discovery had a profound impact on workers at the storage company, including one who passed many sleepless nights after the incident.

“These were not victim-less crimes . ... There are just some things you cannot unsee,” Thompson said. — Reuters