Police rake through Vancouver-area landfill to find corpse of newborn boy

VANCOUVER — It was like finding a needle in a haystack.

Desperate police searchers combed through tons of garbage at the Burns Bog dump site near Vancouver over the weekend until they found the discarded body of a newborn baby boy.

A tip that a young woman had thrown her infant in a trash bin Jan. 31 led police to the landfill where the dead child was located Sunday.

Richmond RCMP Cpl. Jennifer Pound said some of the 35 officers searching through the trash were off-shift but volunteered to help find the tiny body.

And it was tough — all police had to go on was that the baby was wrapped in a towel inside a dark garbage bag.

Pound said searchers isolated an area of the dump that was 100 feet wide by 300 feet long "and it went into depths of 30 feet."

"As horrifying as it was to be searching through all that stuff, it was a relief when they finally did find him," Pound said. "When they were unravelling the towel that the baby was wrapped in — you can't prepare yourself for something like that."

She said counsellors will be available for the searchers if need be.

"It was traumatic for all of them. The whole time you are raking, you are anticipating what you are going to find. Because at that point we didn't know what we were going to find," she said.

Police arrested the 20-year-old mother of the baby. She has been released on a promise to appear March 16.

The RCMP is recommending charges of infanticide, neglecting to obtain assistance at child birth, concealing the body of a child and indignity to a dead body.

An autopsy is being done on the infant's body to see if he was alive at birth, Pound said.

Pound said police are not revealing where the woman lives, but she was at her boyfriend's home in Richmond, just south of Vancouver, when she gave birth.

She told investigators that the boy had the cord wrapped around his neck, but she did not get medical attention.

Pound said the boyfriend was asleep on the couch when the child was born.

"She awoke her boyfriend after giving birth and explained she had a miscarriage. With the help of her boyfriend, the mother wrapped the baby in a towel, put him in a garbage bag and discarded him in a nearby school Dumpster," Pound said. "When police checked the Dumpster they were advised that the bin had been emptied and taken to the Burns Bog landfill."

The woman is co-operating with police and Pound said a doctor will have to assess her mental state.

"It is hard to say what her state is," Pound said. "People assumed she was pregnant. She showed physical attributes of a pregnant woman. The baby appeared to be full-term. It is very difficult for any woman to hide being pregnant in the late 30 weeks. However when people confronted her on it, asked her about it, she denied it right up until the very end."

Pound said that even if the cord was choking the baby, "how many times have we seen where the baby was born with a cord around his neck and still given the chance at life?

"The whole scenario, going into the bathroom, delivering the baby on her own, keeping the whole pregnancy concealed, it is just disturbing. And then she was back at work two days later. Mentally I don't know how you do it. Physically I don't know how you do it," Pound said.

She said fortunately, cases like this one do not come up often for police.

"Sometimes these women are in this desperate situations and this is what happens. And there are so many outlets for them to reach out to. It is such an unnecessary and in my opinion selfish act," Pound said.