Judge rules on woman who left baby’s body in garbage bin

LLOYDMINSTER, Sask. — A 27-year-old woman who put the body of her stillborn baby boy in a black plastic bag and left it in a dumpster in November, 2011, prompting an arduous five-day search of the city’s landfill, received a two-year suspended sentence from a sympathetic judge.

Danielle Jackson, who now lives in Calgary, pleaded guilty to concealing the body of an infant — a charge which carries a maximum penalty of two years behind bars.

In a rare move, provincial court judge Kim Young rejected a joint submission from the Crown and defence, who had proposed a one-year conditional sentence followed by a year of probation, 160 hours of community service, counselling, a letter of apology to Lloydminster RCMP, and an essay on the legal and ethical aspects of dealing with unplanned pregnancy.

That would be too harsh, Young said, noting other women have received lighter penalties in previous cases that included possible infanticide in addition to concealing the body. In Jackson’s case, an autopsy concluded the baby was stillborn and found no signs of trauma.

Young ordered Jackson to maintain her employment, take any counselling or programs recommended by her probation officer, and write a letter of apology to the RCMP officers who had to endure the daunting task of locating the remains.

Jackson, who grew up in Lloydminster and had no prior criminal record, shows obvious remorse and has suffered from notoriety because of the incident, Young said, remarking that she had been “run out of town by the media.”

Defence lawyer Andrew Lyster told court his client is “a very nice person ... who found herself in an overwhelming situation.”

Jackson became pregnant as a result of a sexual assault in the spring of 2011, although her memory of that incident is too vague to result in a charge against the perpetrator, Lyster said.

She made an appointment for an abortion, but missed it because of a “transportation problem,” and later that summer thought she

“IT’S AMAZING THAT THEY FOUND THE BABY,” NICOLE LEINENWEBER

had a miscarriage, he told court.

Crown prosecutor Nicole Leinenweber said Jackson’s roommate — who did not know she was pregnant — found her unconscious and bleeding in the bathroom of their townhouse on the morning of Nov. 19, 2011 and called an ambulance. A nurse at the local hospital later called RCMP, saying Jackson showed clear physical signs of having just delivered a baby.

A subsequent search of the home turned up bloody clothing and evidence of a placenta, but no infant could be found.

Jackson evaded investigators’ questions about what had happened until three days later.

On Nov. 22, she finally admitted having given birth to a stillborn boy while at home alone on the afternoon of Nov. 16.

She told police she had put the body in a black plastic bag, drove across town and left it in a dumpster.

By the time she confessed, the bin had been emptied at the Lloydminster landfill and its contents spread over an area the size of a football field, Leinenweber said. Two-thirds of it had been covered with dirt.

More than 30 RCMP officers, assisted by Calgary police and a cadaver dog, spent the next five days combing through rotting garbage. They recovered the child’s remains on Nov. 29.

“It’s amazing that they found the baby,” Leinenweber said.