Manitoba

Dead infants case: no evidence of foul play so far, says lawyer

There are still no answers as to the identity of six infants whose remains were found last October in a Winnipeg U-Haul storage locker.

Dead infants case: no evidence of foul play so far, says lawyer

10 years ago
Duration 1:33
There are still no answers as to the identity of six infants whose remains were found last October in a Winnipeg U-Haul storage locker.

The lawyer for Andrea Giesbrecht, the woman accused of hiding the remains of six infants in a Winnipeg storage locker, says autopsies and other tests show no sign of foul play.

The remains were found inside a U-Haul storage locker in October.

Andrea Giesbrecht is accused of concealing the remains of six infants in a U-Haul storage locker in Winnipeg. (CBC)
Giesbrecht, 40, remains in custody on six counts of concealing the bodies.

Her lawyer, Greg Brodsky, said Monday that a forensic pathologist and a forensic anthropologist brought in by the Crown found no evidence of foul play.

Brodsky also told court there is still nothing to indicate the infants were not stillborn, and the identity of any parents has not been determined.

"I mean we don't even have the DNA evidence yet," he told reporters outside court.

"There's no proof they weren't stillborn. They specifically say that."

The Crown declined to comment on its findings, as the case is still before the court.

The remains were found inside a U-Haul storage locker on McPhillips Street on Oct. 20, 2014. (Lindsay Tsuji/CBC)
No trial date has been set, and the matter has been put over to April 17 while Brodsky awaits further evidence disclosure from the Crown.

When asked what his client is saying about the situation, Brodsky replied, "I think she'd like to get on with her life."

So far, Giesbrecht has not applied for bail and Brodsky hasn't explained why not.

"How do I know, and how would a court know, what to do about the issue of bail if we don't know what the evidence is?" he said.

"If they've gone to the extent already of bringing in … an out-of-province expert to do an autopsy in secret at the Health Sciences Centre here in Winnipeg, I mean, when's it going to come to an end? Are they going to keep on going until they find someone who's going to say what they want them to say?"

With files from The Canadian Press