Why baby George will never be found
Parents disposed of dead son’s body in dumpster, court document reveals
George Doodhnaught came into the world prematurely and left just the same.
The 9-week-old baby boy’s disappearance in November 2011 led Children’s Aid workers and police on a frantic chase for a missing child that soon came to a dramatic conclusion: George was dead.
On Wednesday, common-law partners Ricky Ray Doodhnaught, 32, and Nadia Ayyad, 24, pleaded guilty and were sentencedto 33 and 27 months respectively in prison — both for indignity to a dead body and Ayyad also for failing to provide the necessities of life and obstructing police.
Now, court documents have revealed why police conceded they’re unlikely ever to recover baby George’s body. According to the agreed statement of facts, when the parents awoke to find their son dead between them, they disposed of the infant in a convenience store dumpster, swaddled in a plastic garbage bag, never to be seen again.
“The frustrating and sad part is, there’s a little baby that never, you know, had a proper burial,” Det.Sgt. John Braybrook, of the York Region police homicide squad, said Thursday. “And the dignity, obviously — that’s where that comes into it, you know? I mean, we’re human beings for God’s sake.”
George was born six weeks premature at Etobicoke General Hospital on Sept. 27, 2011. The boy with dark peach-fuzz hair and chocolate almond eyes had a heart murmur and a severe case of thrush.
His birth would mark the second time hospital staff had notified the CAS of concerns about his parents’ ability to care for a child, according to the agreed statement of facts.
The couple’s first boy was born less than a year earlier, in December 2010, at Humber River Regional Hospital. A nurse raised concerns about Ayyad’s recorded mental health issues, previous substance abuse and the fact she had not sought any prenatal care.
Four days before George was born, aCAS worker told Ayyad she looked pregnant, according to the statement of facts. Ayyad told the worker she was dieting and her clothes “made her appear pregnant.”
After George was born, hospital staff notified CAS because of Ay- yad’s “inconsistency” in feeding him and their observations of Ayyad and her older son.
On Oct. 31, Doodhnaught brought George to a pediatrician for an appointment, where he was found to be in good health. His thrush had subsided and the heart murmur had also disappeared. It was the last reported sighting of the infant.
The following day, Doodhnaught called CAS to say the family would be in London, Ont., for several days after a death in the family — a “lie to buy them time,” he later admitted. Workers learned the following week the family had moved out of their apartment without notice. According to the statement of facts, CAS got a warrant on Nov. 21 to remove the older son and George, citing multiple concerns. The next day, the children were reported missing to York police. What CAS and police didn’t know, as they conducted an exhaustive search that tracked the family to a Rexdale hotel, was that George had been dead for as long as 20 days. On Dec. 6, following a high-speed police chase, Doodhnaught was arrested at his aunt’s Toronto home. George could not be found. After three days of not co-operating with police, Doodhnaught told them he woke Nov. 1 to find George lifeless and cold, lying face down between him and Ayyad. The couple had brought him into their bed at midnight, he said. George had been crying and Ayyad tried to feed him. Now the boy wasn’t moving. Fearing CAS would take their older son if they called 911, they packed their family into the van. George’s body, dressed in a blue Baby Gap sleeper, was placed in a car seat, a small blanket draped over him. Parked at a Mac’s store at Martin Grove Rd. and Silverstone Dr., Ayyad took George — named after her father — from his car seat, wrapping him in a blue, yellow and white blanket before putting him inside a black plastic garbage bag. He was left in a dumpster at the side of the store. Police tracked the dumpster’s route to two potential landfill sites, in Niagara Falls and Blenheim, Ont., finding both crushed incoming waste with heavy machinery. Ayyad will be released from prison in four months and subject to three years’ probation. Doodhnaught will be released in 23 months. Patrick Lake, executive director of York Region’s Children’s Aid Society, said courts don’t make umbrella orders preventing someone convicted of child welfare-related offences from ever becoming the caregiver of another child. “It wouldn’t automatically be assumed by the court that in the past, because there’s been such an incident, that they’re automatically and forever unable to care for a child.” For investigators, there’s little satisfaction in the conclusion of their search for George. “It’s tough for us,” said Braybrook. “At least they are paying some sort of price for the actions that they took — or they didn’t take.”