BY JENNIFER O'BRIEN , DALE CARRUTHERS, THE LONDON FREE PRESS
FIRST POSTED: THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2016
LONDON, Ont. - If not for a man rummaging through dumpsters behind a London apartment building Thursday, just off the city’s Richmond Row bar strip, the body of the newborn inside may never have been found.
But there it was among the garbage that filled the large blue dumpster behind 675 Richmond St., a dead baby inside a black re-usable grocery bag — a heartbreaking discovery that’s led to a major crime investigation, which by Thursday night held more questions than answers.
How did the baby end up in a dumpster?
Who and where are its parents?
The answers, police said they didn’t immediately know — but that they weren’t treating the case as a homicide investigation.
They’re asking anyone who can provide clues to contact them.
Police wouldn’t say whether the child was a boy or girl, only that it was a “newborn.”
Nor would police speculate on the time or cause of death. An autopsy Friday may provide some answers.
“I can never push things out of my mind,” the homeless man who made the grisly disocvery, appearing shaken, said as he wheeled a shopping cart full of scrap metal down Richmond Street, after giving police a statement.
Police were checking to see if there’s any video footage from several surveillance cameras in the area that could help solve the mystery.
“People and residences in the area will be canvassed by officers to see if anybody has information or has seen anything that could relate to what’s happened here,” Staff Sgt. Blair Harvey said at the scene.
Emergency workers were called to the location about 11:30 a.m., by a building manager who’d been alerted to the disturbing find by a 41-year-old homeless man. He had been looking for bottles and scrap metal behind two apartment buildings at Richmond and Mill streets.
Paramedics and firefighters descended on the scene, but it was immediately clear the baby was dead and they left, replaced by dozens of London police officers.
“There’s a baby back there in a bag,” said the building employee, who identified himself as Phil, after police arrived on the scene.
“I don’t want to ever see that again.”
Police cordoned off an area surrounding four blue dumpsters behind the two apartment buildings and an attached plaza that contains a yoga studio, two variety stores, a Tim Hortons and restaurants.
Employees in one business said the dumpsters are used by all tenants, and there are also garbage chutes for residents of the apartments.
The building has a large post-secondary student population, one business owner said.
The black President’s Choice grocery tote bag was visible beside one of the containers, just outside a set of double doors into the building. Investigators and the coroner spent some time inspecting an area inside the doors.
Police barred residents of the high-rise from entering Thursday afternoon while they investigated.
By about 2 p.m., a funeral service had removed the baby, using a car seat to transport the body.
Chris Afentoulopoulos, who owns a tanning salon in the plaza, rushed to his business after staff alerted him of the heavy police presence.
“This is crazy,” said Afentoulopoulos, as police took photographs of the scene just metres away.
“To hear somebody dropped off a baby like that. I don’t know. I have no words.”
Afentoulopoulos said he often sees street people in the parking lot behind his tanning salon where police found the baby.
Commentary by the Ottawa Mens Centre
Women frequently murder and or abuse their own children and society turns a blind eye.
Canada's criminal code promotes murder by women of their own children and gives them what judges call, "A free pass".
Female mental illness is many times more frequent than that of male mental illness,
and the most probable time for Female Mental Illness to occur is under stressors such
as pregnancy and child birth.
Don't believe a word of what they call "Post Partum Depression", which is a "justification for aberrant female behaviour.
Post Partum Depression, in reality, is observable aberrant behaviours of a female who had and continues to have a underlying
mental health problem.
For more information on Female Mental Illness, take a gander at this
Ottawa Mens Centre