Winnipeg Police have arrested a 40-year-old woman with a record of non-violent crime for hiding the bodies of six children discovered Monday in a rented storage locker.
Andrea Giesbrecht, who police said has also gone by the name Andrea Naworynsky, was jailed and charged with six counts of concealing the body of a child and one of breach of probation. She was the rentor of the storage locker where employees of U Haul of Central Canada found the remains.
“It is our belief the individuals were all newborns,” police spokesman Constable Eric Hofley said at a news conference Wednesday. But confirmation of that belief must wait on extensive forensic investigations on the remains that might take months. These investigations will include DNA testing to determine whether the children are related to Giesbrecht.
The woman’s lawyer, Greg Brodsky, said she was “in bewilderment” over her arrest, according to the Toronto Star. On November 12 she will have a bail hearing.
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She has a history of financial problems resulting in a conviction on two charges of fraud over $5,000 and sentence of two years probation, 100 hours of community service, and repayment of the debt.
Giesbrecht’s lawyer in that case, Alan Libman, told the court at sentencing she was a gambling addict for whom gambling “was part of the family milieu” in her childhood. Her offences stemmed from her gambling, which left her unable to pay her rent or utilities. She had borrowed from her elderly neighbour, planning to repay her with winnings from gambling that never materialized. The cheques she wrote her neighbour bounced.
Also on Wednesday, several dozen people, many of them natives, held a memorial for the children near the storage facility. Organizer Jennifer Spence, who identified herself as “a traditional native person,” explained to a reporter, “In some small way, we had to give this gesture to the children, to their spirits, ’cause they had spirits and they’re travelling on to the spirit world.” The CBC reported fellow organizer Vin Clarke saying, “If they're native or not it, doesn't matter. They're children that are discarded like so many other things in this world.”