DNA profile suggests Giesbrecht is mother of babies found in locker

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This article was published 20/04/2016 (3488 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Andrea Giesbrecht may have had as many as 18 different pregnancies — giving birth to two children, undergoing 10 legal abortions and then delivering six other babies in unknown circumstances only to keep their remains inside a Winnipeg storage locker.

New details emerged publicly for the first time Wednesday about Giesbrecht’s background and a parental link to the gruesome October 2014 discovery inside the U-Haul facility on McPhillips Street.

Forensic specialists were able to build DNA profiles from tissue, organ and bone samples taken from the human remains that were found by employees stuffed inside five large containers. Those profiles were then compared to one developed from a used sanitary napkin seized by police during a court-authorized search of Giesbrecht’s home.

All six matched. Giesbrecht’s husband also provided a voluntary blood sample which suggested he was the father of all the infants. Christine Crossman, a forensic biologist with the RCMP lab in Vancouver, told court the odds of anyone else being the parents are in the billions, if not trillions.

“It would be extremely, extremely rare,” she testified. “This number is significant.”

Court has not heard whether Giesbrecht’s husband was even aware of all her pregnancies, when they occurred or how the babies were delivered. That information may emerge later during the trial. Lawyers have filed a document showing the man had a vasectomy in 2011.

There is one caveat, however, to declaring with absolute certainty that Giesbrecht, 42, is the mother. Defence lawyer Greg Brodsky is challenging the admissibility of the used sanitary napkin, arguing it was obtained illegally by police. He is also not conceding blood on the item belonged to his client.

The Crown intends to argue there is only one obvious inference to draw, given that Giesbrecht was the only adult female living in her home. But provincial court Judge Murray Thompson will have to make a ruling on that issue later in this case.

It’s not clear how relevant the issue is to the case at hand; Giesbrecht is charged with six counts of concealing a child’s body, and whether she was the biological mother of those children’s bodies is not necessary to prove the offence.

Court also heard Wednesday that forensic specialists determined the remains belonged to five boys and one girl. They were not able to “age” the remains to say when they were born, or under what conditions. The official causes of death have been listed as “undetermined.”

Brodsky has previously said he believes the remains are likely more than a decade old. He is challenging whether the state of the infants meets the legal requirement to prove the unique charges against his client. Police did originally caution Giesbrecht that they may charge her with murder or some related offence, but that never came to fruition.

Brodsky revealed in court Wednesday that his client’s medical records show she had 10 abortions between 1994 and 2011. She gave birth to her two sons in 1997 and 2002.

The relevance of mentioning those abortions isn’t clear at this time, but may emerge later once lawyers get into final arguments. There is no suggestion the remains in the storage locker are connected to those procedures. If Giesbrecht is, in fact, the mother of the six babies, then it appears she has been pregnant at least 18 times over her life.

Court has heard that officials were only able to determine the size of Baby No. 1. Medical examination showed him to be weighing 2.85 kilograms (6.2 pounds) and measuring 49 centimetres.

His body was found stuffed inside a plastic storage container that also included an unusual list of other items — including three small toy cars, Scooby-Doo underwear, a perfume sample, a Pepto-Bismol bottle filled with coins, a plastic beaded necklace and a McDonald’s Happy Meal coupon. There were also personal papers belonging to Giesbrecht, including payroll stubs from 2004 and a St. John Ambulance training certificate that expired in 2007.

The size of other babies were impossible to determine due to the condition of their remains, court heard Wednesday.

Giesbrecht was arrested after U-Haul employees made the grisly discovery while cleaning out her storage area; she was several months overdue on her locker rental payments, ignoring repeated warnings to square up.

Giesbrecht is also facing multiple fraud charges stemming from unrelated investigations. She is also charged with breaching a probation order by participating in gambling. A judge had barred her from any such conduct after she previously pleaded guilty to defrauding an elderly neighbour out of nearly $8,000 to feed what has been described in court as a major gambling addiction.

An earlier pre-sentence report painted Giesbrecht as a suburban soccer mom of two sons, married for 17 years, and a Siloam Mission volunteer. She had also been a homecare worker for DASCH, which supports people who have disabilities, and previously worked at the St. Amant Centre.

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