CALGARY, November 23, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A woman who was charged with attempted murder for throwing her newborn son into a dumpster in October 2010 is now facing charges of murder in the deaths of two previous children.
Police charged Meredith Katharine Borowiec, 30, with two counts of second degree murder yesterday, after investigators discovered evidence through friends of the accused who suspected she had been pregnant twice in the past three years.
The evidence suggests that Borowiec gave birth in 2008 and again in 2009, though there are no hospital records and no bodies have been found to confirm the allegations.
“Homicide charges have been laid in the past without having a body, so it has been done,” Staff Sgt. Kelly Campbell of Calgary’s Child Abuse Unit told The Calgary Herald. “Working with the Crown prosecutor’s office, it was determined these were the appropriate charges.”
“It would be highly unlikely that we recover the bodies due to the length of time,” Campbell observed.
Borowiec was charged last week with the attempted murder of her son who she left to die in a dumpster in northwest Calgary. The child was saved by a man who only later found out he was the boy’s father.
On Oct. 19, 2010, the man said Borowiec was complaining of cramps and illness. He said he had no idea his girlfriend was pregnant because she was heavy set and always had “a bit of a belly.”
He told police that on returning home for lunch that day a passerby alerted him to cries coming from a dumpster. “A girl said, ‘I think I hear a baby in the dumpster.’ With no knowledge at the time that this is my kid whatsoever, I went running over there, stood beside the dumpster, heard the baby cry,” the man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the child, told the Calgary Herald.
“I jumped in and removed the stuff. I personally opened the bag and uncovered all the stuff off,” he said.
Calgary police said that Borowiec told them she did not know she was pregnant until she gave birth to the child. She allegedly put the living baby in a garbage bag and tossed him into the dumpster.
Borowiec subsequently underwent psychiatric assessment.
Police have noted that Borowiec has cooperated with them throughout the investigation, and that her son, now a year old, is in good health despite spending two hours in the garbage bin right after his birth.
Earlier this year, an Alberta judge let a woman who strangled her newborn son walk free after arguing that Canada’s absence of a law on abortion signals that Canadians “sympathize” with the mother.
Katrina Effert instead received a three-year suspended sentence from Justice Joanne Veit of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench. As a result, she was able to walk out of court, though she will have to abide by certain conditions.
According to Justice Veit, Canada’s lack of an abortion law indicates that “while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support.”