Winnipeg mother accused of leaving newborn in garbage bin previously received treatment for addiction: court records

A Winnipeg mother who’s accused of leaving her newborn daughter in a garbage bin struggled with addiction and homelessness, according to court records.

Jeanene Rosa Moar, 31, was charged this week with manslaughter and concealing the body of a child after her infant girl was found dead early last month in a garbage bin between Boyd Avenue and Redwood Avenue in the city’s North End.

The charges haven’t been tested in court and Moar is presumed innocent.

A court date for Moar scheduled for Friday was put over to June 20.

She remains in custody.

Court records show Moar had previous convictions for motor vehicle theft and failing to comply with her probation. In October 2018 she pleaded guilty to driving while impaired and stealing a running car while she was disqualified from driving.

Moar was sentenced to 24 days in custody and given a $1,000 fine for those offences.

Court heard she had driven off in the vehicle to a south Winnipeg Liquor Mart where she stole one can of alcohol and was later found by police in the vehicle drinking in the parking lot and taken into custody.

Her lawyer at the time told a judge Moar lives with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and was staying in a treatment centre for help with addictions to methamphetamine and alcohol.

The court heard she had suffered from a transient lifestyle after becoming homeless.

“She did live with her mother and it was a fairly good situation growing up until ultimately around the age of eight,” her lawyer told the court in 2018.

The lawyer told the judge Moar advised him she was then exposed to abuse, neglect and harassment.

“She was actually kicked out of her house by her mother’s boyfriend who was somewhat emotionally and/or sexually harassing her,” Moar’s lawyer told the court. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say abuse did happen. I don’t know one way or the other.”

Her lawyer told the judge Moar took responsibility for her actions in 2018 and wanted to focus on overcoming her addictions to work on her employment skills so she could get a job as a server.

The troubling circumstances of the new offences Moar is now accused of have left many in the community shocked and saddened.

Doug King, a justice studies professor at Calgary’s Mount Royal University, cautions people not to rush to judgment.

“We have to be understanding that oftentimes some women are caught in great desperate situations,” King said. “They have no support network, they feel trapped, they feel frightened, they feel anxious and they do the wrong thing and it can be criminal.”

Winnipeg police believe the infant, who officers have identified as Baby Moar, was still alive when she was placed in the garbage bin.

It’s a factor King suggests led to the charge of manslaughter.

“That act then would be either intentional, in the sense of intentionally causing death which is murder,” King said. “Or manslaughter, which is not intending to cause death but death occurred by the result of an action.”

He said the charge of infanticide may have also been considered, which is an offence where a mother causes the death of their child while experiencing mental distress.

Investigators would only say the offences Moar was charged with were laid in consultation with the Crown.

“Manslaughter is the one that would fit, excluding infanticide. And if there was no evidence that the mother was suffering from mental disorder then manslaughter becomes the default,” King said.

He said while these cases are extraordinarily rare, there are initiatives underway across the continent to better support mothers.

“To actually, through different social service agencies, develop what, for want of a better word, is a drop box for women who’ve given birth in these kinds of situations to go and deposit the child in. Basically a door to a building in an anonymous fashion,” King said. “We can do a lot more when it comes to these kinds of situations where women find themselves in a great desperate situation.”