CALGARY — A Calgary woman admitted that she smothered her infant son and severely injured her other boy in a series of journal entries she wrote to her dead husband.
Stacy Bourdeaux pleaded guilty to manslaughter Wednesday as well as attempted murder and failing to provide the necessities of life.
“Dear Ted, now that you are gone I can confess about Sean,” wrote Bourdeaux in passages that were read in court. “The night that he left us, it wasn’t actually while he was sleeping.
“I did what I didn’t want to do. The crying wouldn’t stop, so I ended up putting a pillow over his face and made sure that it was stopping his breathing. I know it’s something that I shouldn’t have done, but I did.”
Ten-month-old Sean Ronald Fewer was found not breathing in his crib in December 2004. At the time, his death did not raise any suspicion with the medical examiner, who ruled it was a case of sudden infant death syndrome.
But in May 2010, police were called to Alberta Children’s Hospital where a five-year-old boy was brought in having trouble breathing.
Police ended up charging Bourdeaux, 34, with attempted murder and choking with intent a few months later. They began looking into her background and that’s when they discovered Sean’s death.
Court heard that the attack on the five year old happened on May 23, 2010. Bourdeaux dragged the boy upstairs after he had thrown a tantrum. Over a two hour period she attempted to choke him to death.
She waited several days before taking him to hospital. He survived, but has severe brain damage, no longer speaks and has limited motor skills.
Bourdeaux detailed her feelings about the attack in a journal to her husband, Ted Fewer, who died accidentally last year. He was electrocuted while trying to retrieve something caught in a power line.
“I was trying to send him to you. And if I lose him now I am going to feel really bad, cause it would be my fault. I can say he’s very tough and a fighter,” Bourdeau wrote.
“I do feel bad about doing what I did. I’m just not sure why. It was the same with Sean too. To this day I still feel the guilt of losing Sean too.”
Bourdeaux, who has been in custody since her arrest a year ago, is to return to court Nov. 16 following the completion of a pre-sentence and psychological-risk assessment.