Woman who killed son avoids jail time
Ottawa Citizen
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
A 28-year-old woman won't spend a day in jail for killing her baby by pulling him out of the toilet bowl in which he was born, suffocating him with a plastic bag and then discarding his body in a dumpster on a Manitoba reserve. Selena Stevenson pleaded guilty yesterday to infanticide and was given an 18-month conditional sentence by a judge, who called the case "heartwrenching." Justice Deborah McCawley said the facts of the case were "monstrous," but said jail time would serve no purpose. Ms. Stevenson got pregnant in the spring of 2002 by a man who raped her when she passed out drunk at a house party, court was told. She had no money for an abortion so instead hid the pregnancy from her abusive common-law husband. The boy's body was discovered three months after the killing by someone searching a garbage dump for scrap. Ms. Stevenson went to police and confessed after hearing about the body's discovery.
Ottawa Citizen