‘There were so many paramedics around trying to save him’: infant’s mother testifies as manslaughter trial begins

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A Winnipeg man on trial for manslaughter in the death of his three-month-old son wiped tears from his eyes as court listened to the 911 call he made four years ago, after discovering the child not breathing in his crib.

Mathieu Moreau, 34, was arrested days after his son, Maven, was taken off life support Jan. 15, 2020.

“Well, basically, my son was sleeping, and then I heard wheezing and I went to check up on him and he was having a hard time breathing and basically formula is coming out of his nose,” Moreau told a 911 operator shortly after 9 p.m., Jan. 11, 2020.

“I’m so scared right now,” Moreau said, sounding panicked after the operator tells him how to perform CPR.

“C’mon buddy, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” the man said through tears as he followed the 911 operator’s instructions.

Maven’s mother, Evelyn Gillis, testified Monday she was out with a friend for dinner in Osborne Village that night when she got call from her father.

“He said: ‘You need to go to your apartment right now, Maven’s not OK,’” Gillis told court. “I took off running” and arrived at her Nassau Street apartment three minutes later, she said.

“They had all these machines connected to (Maven),” Gillis said, crying. “There were so many paramedics around trying to save him. It was awful.”

The 26-year-old said she saw Moreau pacing the hallway between their bedroom and living room “shaking and crying.”

“He said: ‘I didn’t do anything. He was choking on milk. I tried to save him,’” Gillis testified.

The woman told court she and Moreau had been dating just a matter of months before she became pregnant and the two moved in together. Maven was born a month premature on Oct. 17, 2019.

In the month before his death, Maven was twice injured while alone in his father’s care, Gillis testified.

On Dec. 9, 2019, the infant suffered a bruise to his nose after Moreau said his hand slipped while removing Maven from a baby tub and the child struck his face on the tub.

Moreau “was in tears,” telling Gillis of the incident, she said. “He said: ‘I felt so bad. It was an accident.’”

On Jan. 11, 2020, Gillis testified, Moreau had been watching Maven when she returned home and he hurried off to pick up a work cheque.

Gillis told court she heard Maven waking up and when she checked on him, found he had a puffy lip. When she opened the child’s mouth, she saw blood and what looked like a hole or tear in the frenulum, the piece of tissue that connects the tongue to the floor of the mouth.

The woman said when she reached him by phone, Moreau blamed the injury on a toy Gillis had left in the child’s crib.

Gillis called her father and took Maven to the hospital, where a doctor prescribed him Tylenol. Gillis said she believed, at the time, it was her fault.

“It didn’t make sense with the toy, it was all rounded edges,” she testified. “I was just happy he was OK.”

Gillis said she and Moreau remained together until police charged him with manslaughter.

Under cross examination, Gillis testified police arrested her Jan. 12, 2020, and told her she could be charged if Maven died.

“You understood that you were a suspect or Mathieu was a suspect,” said defence lawyer Bruce Bonney.

“Yes,” Gillis said.

The trial resumes Tuesday, and is set for three weeks.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca