CALGARY — A Calgary mother facing accusations that she put her newborn baby in a garbage bag and tossed him into a trash bin tearfully told police she delivered the child into a toilet and thought the tiny boy was dead.
Meredith Borowiec, 31, made the comments to Calgary police during an interview taped in October 2010, after the baby was rescued from the Dumpster by passersby.
Borowiec is on trial on two counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of two other newborns in 2008 and 2009. Those charges weren’t laid until after a child was found alive in the Dumpster in 2010.
She faces a second trial this fall on an attempted murder charge relating to the surviving child. But the Crown wants the baby found in the trash ruled as similar-fact evidence so it can be used in the murder trial, which is being heard by a judge without a jury.
“I thought it was dead,” said Borowiec in the Oct. 19, 2010 interview in a hospital room at Calgary’s Foothills Hospital. “He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t making any noise.”
Borowiec sobbed as she told police she didn’t know she was pregnant before she gave birth. She said she woke up with severe cramps and as they intensified she went to the bathroom and stood on the toilet.
“He came out. I cut the cord,” she said. “I started crying and freaking out.”
Borowiec told investigators she took the newborn out of the bowl and placed it on a towel. She then put the infant into the bathroom garbage bag and took him downstairs. She placed that bag into a kitchen garbage bag and dropped everything into the Dumpster outside.
Borowiec said she then had a smoke and went upstairs.
“I don’t know why I reacted the way I did. I should have called 911 and dealt with the consequences,” Borowiec said. “I’m sorry. Very, very sorry ... I’m not a malicious person.”
As she tossed her child into the garbage bin, Borowiec conceded it crossed her mind that he might still be alive.
“I did have that thought yes,” she said. “I thought it was over, but another part of me said it wasn’t and maybe I would get caught for doing that.”
The trial is scheduled to last six weeks and the judge has yet to hear evidence on the two murder charges.
Borowiec told the interviewers she had a miscarriage the year before in July 2009. She said it occurred in her home and she went to a doctor at a clinic the next day who confirmed the miscarriage.
That’s the same time the Crown alleges she killed one of her newborns.
Borowiec didn’t ask about the welfare of her child during the lengthy interview with police, but did express relief when told by the detective.
“I’m really glad he’s alive and my stupid actions didn’t take a life.”