A Tale of Three (Alleged) Murders

“Daddy, I keep hearing noises outside”

“What kind of noise, sweetheart?” I replied

“Gurgling noises”, said my 6-year old boy.

In my mind there is no doubt that this is caused by the rain racing down the gutters. There is, after all, a frightful storm happening, the rain coming down in sheets.

“It’s just the water in the gutters, sweetie. Go back to sleep, see you tomorrow.”

With these words I kiss and hug my boy, close the door to his room, and go to bed myself.

The doorbell rings.

What?

The doorbell rings. I get up, confused. It’s still dark outside. I grab my phone. It’s ten to six in the morning.

The doorbell rings. I hastily put on some clothes.

The doorbell rings. The doorbell rings, rings, rings, rings.

I get to the door, and without opening:

“Who is it?”

I see two circles of light on the ground through the window. Flashlights.

“It’s the police. Please open.”

Bracing myself and fearing the worse, I open the door. Two police officers, detectives, one sergeant, flash their badges, ask if they can come in. Still in my boxers, I acquiesce, move out of the way. They come in and I close the door behind them. It’s October and it’s getting cold.

“What’s going on?”

“There has been an … incident … at your neighbour’s house. We need to ask you some questions.”

I can guess what kind of incident the most senior detective is talking about. The kind that you get woken up at six in the morning by a pounding on the door. I don’t ask and they don’t tell.
“Which neighbor?”

They tell me. I don’t know them, I know of them. They have a little girl about my daughter’s age. I would not recognize any of them if I passed them on the street.

They want to know if I know them, how I know them, what kind of people they are, what happens there. I want to say that they’re white trash but I hold my tongue.

They’ve had parties. They make noise, nothing bad or frequent. There’s always trucks and pickups and construction materials and debris in front of the house. I know nothing that can help. I don’t even know what they want.

They thank me for my time, apologize for waking my family and I and leave. They stay sitting in their car in front of my house a long time.

I do my morning thing with the family and the kids. I go outside. There are many police cars in front of the neighbors’ house. The coroner’s van is there. There is a van from a local funeral home, with some men in black suits removing the stretcher from the back, preparing to go inside. Men in white overalls come and go.

I get bored and scared and leave.

In the next few days there are journalists in the street, stopping cars and asking questions. They ask me the same questions the police officers did. I still don’t know anything.

There is a story on the news about a local woman checking herself in the hospital, complaining of abdominal pain. She is alone, but has clearly given birth. She denies it. There is placenta. The hospital people tell the police, the police go to her house, the police ring my doorbell at six in the morning.

It transpires that three years previous she had given birth to her daughter, pretending not to know that she had been pregnant. The daughter lived. We’ve seen her around.

This October’s baby did not live. The previous year’s baby did not live either. Nor the one from the year before that.

The police found the remains of three newborns in her house.

While our children were growing and learning and playing and laughing, there were children who’d never been given a chance, decomposing.

One a year since they moved here.

The (Alleged) Murder House

There have been more journalists. Probing and insinuating. I still don’t know anything, except that something truly horrible happened truly close.

Disclaimer: this story is entirely true, from what I can gather from local news sources. This is a true account of my own experience, I make no claims of the guilt or innocence of anyone. See for yourselves:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/quebec-mother-facing-murder-charges-in-deaths-of-her-3-newborns-1.3660807