RICHMOND (NEWS1130) - A 20-year-old woman is facing charges after Richmond RCMP say she gave birth to a newborn and then threw it into the trash. The body of a baby boy was found Sunday by special crews searching in the Burns Bog landfill, and it's a case that has upset even veteran police investigators.
RCMP received an anonymous tip on February 4th about a woman who may have been pregnant, delivered and then discarded her baby. The Richmond Serious Crime Unit identified the suspect and determined that the 20-year-old woman did give birth to a baby boy on Sunday, January 31st at her boyfriend's home in Richmond.
Police say the woman gave birth in a bathroom while her boyfriend was asleep on the couch. Officers say the baby was blue and not breathing at the time of his birth, so the woman woke up her boyfriend, who apparently didn't even know his girlfriend was pregnant. RCMP say the mother and boyfriend wrapped the baby in a towel, put him in a garbage bag and discarded him in a nearby school dumpster.
When police checked the dumpster they were advised that the bin had been emptied and taken to the Burns Bog landfill. RCMP and with the Lower Mainland Tac Troop (which contains a number of police agencies), searched the landfill over the last three days.
The 20-year-old mother of the baby was arrested and released on a Promise to Appear, and charges are being recommended for: neglect to obtain assistance at child birth, concealing body of child, infanticide, indignity to dead body.
"People presumed or assumed she was pregnant. She was denying it and wasn't confirming it to anybody. She was back at work two days after she gave birth. Putting your own child into a garbage bag is disgusting, to say the least," says RCMP Corporal Jennifer Pound, who herself is five months pregnant.