Confession rejected

A judge has tossed out a police statement given by an intellectually vulnerable woman charged with manslaughter in the death of her toddler stepson, ruling her confession came after hours of “psychological pummelling” by investigators.

The woman, who is 24 years old, was arrested in April 2020 following the death of her two-year-old stepson. The woman cannot be identified under terms of a court-ordered publication ban.

“Normally, statements made by an accused person admitting a serious offence amounts to very important evidence in the Crown’s case,” provincial court Judge Don Slough said in a recently released trial ruling.

“Frankly, given (the accused’s) significant vulnerability and suggestibility combined with the tactics of the police, her statements cannot be accorded the weight normally assigned to a confession.”–Judge Don Slough

“Frankly, given (the accused’s) significant vulnerability and suggestibility combined with the tactics of the police, her statements cannot be accorded the weight normally assigned to a confession,” Slough said. “I find that the admission of (her) statements would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.”

The woman called 911 on March 24, 2020, to report the child had been injured. She initially told police he might have been hurt in a fall or struck by one of his two siblings.

The child died two days later in hospital as the result of a brain injury. Police arrested the stepmother a week later, saying at the time her explanations didn’t account for the seriousness of his injuries.

During an 11-hour police interview recorded on April 3, 2020, an investigator became “increasingly aggressive” with the woman, engaged in “a lengthy personal attack,” and showed her a graphic autopsy photo, Slough said.

The autopsy photo “can only be described as gruesome and shocking,” Slough said. “Showing (the accused) this photograph served no legitimate purpose; rather it was intended as a brutal psychological shock to provoke an emotional response and perhaps a confession.”

Early in the interview, the woman said she had suffered a serious brain injury in 2007 that left her in a coma for three weeks. A clinical psychologist has testified the woman has an IQ of 54, with a very low verbal comprehension level and extremely limited ability to understand abstract concepts.

As the interview progressed, the investigator “became increasingly aggressive and insistent” that the woman provide an explanation for the child’s injuries, at times yelling at her and accusing her of throwing another of the child’s siblings “under the bus,” Slough said.

Left alone in the interview room, the woman at one point can be seen on video rocking back and forth in her chair, tapping her head on the wall, saying: “I can’t take it anymore. I know I didn’t do it.”

Later, the investigator leaves the interview room again, and the woman is seen crying and saying: “My brain doesn’t process things.”

“Showing (the accused) this photograph served no legitimate purpose; rather it was intended as a brutal psychological shock to provoke an emotional response and perhaps a confession.”–Judge Don Slough

Seven hours into the interview, the woman continued to insist she hadn’t harmed the child.

“You can ask me a million questions and it’s going to be the same. I did not do this.”

After nine hours, the woman asks how long she is going to be held in custody.

“As long as it takes, to be honest,” the investigator tells her. “We really don’t have a time frame… it’s about getting to the truth and the complete story… you have control over how long it takes.”

Late in the interview, a second investigator took over, and suggested the woman shook the child and caused his death.

The woman denied shaking the boy and told the investigator she was overwhelmed by caring for four children — and dropped him. When the investigator told her dropping the child could not explain his catastrophic injuries, she said she threw him.

“At this point,” the investigator “terminates the interview, telling (the accused) that she will not be going home,” Slough said.

The lengthy and aggressive interview and numerous suggestions the questioning would only stop when the woman gave an acceptable explanation for the child’s injuries “resulted in (the accused’s) emotional breakdown,” Slough said.

“She has been told that the only way the questioning will cease is if she adopts some version of the facts suggested by the police,” he said.

“She has been told that the only way the questioning will cease is if she adopts some version of the facts suggested by the police.”–Judge Don Slough

Slough also found police had breached the accused’s Charter rights when, after suggesting she intended to kill the child, an investigator denied her request to speak to a lawyer.

The woman pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2021, but was later allowed to withdraw the plea after arguing she had been pressured by police to confess and that her lawyers at the time had not properly informed her about the ramifications of her decision.

“I just wanted to get out of (the police interrogation),” the woman testified at a 2022 hearing to withdraw her guilty plea. “I was so scared and anxious. An officer told me he just wanted to hear anything. I assumed it would get me out of there,” she said.

The woman’s trial resumes April 8.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca