A B.C. woman who threw her dead baby into a dumpster in Richmond will not go to jail but instead will serve her one-year sentence in the community.
Courtny Dawne Taylor was 20 when she gave birth to a baby boy in her boyfriend's Richmond bathroom in the early morning hours of Jan. 31, 2010.
She pleaded guilty in December to disposing of the body with the intent to conceal its delivery and received a 12-month conditional sentence followed by two years of probation in Richmond provincial court on Monday.
Taylor, now 22, told police that the baby's umbilical cord was wrapped around its neck when it was born and it was not breathing or moving, but a forensic pathologist was unable to determine whether the baby was born dead or alive.
Taylor testified that she wrapped the baby in a towel and then put him in a garbage bag before showering and cleaning up the bathroom. Then, she woke her boyfriend and asked for help getting rid of the body.
They dumped the body in a garbage bin behind a school near the boyfriend's home. More than 30 police officers, acting on a tip, searched Delta's Burns Bog landfill for three days before finding the baby's body.
Taylor told the court that the birth was a complete shock, even though she had suspected she might be pregnant. She took two pregnancy tests in the spring and summer before the baby arrived and both revealed that she was not pregnant, but she did not visit a doctor to confirm that.
Friends, family and her boyfriend all asked her if she was pregnant, but she denied anything was wrong.
"I didn't know what to do. Like, once I realized what was happening I knew that I couldn't really tell anyone. I didn't think people would really believe me. I was really worried about what people would think," Taylor told police after she was arrested in February 2010.
Psychologists who examined Taylor said she is at a low risk to re-offend but blamed her behaviour on "egocentricity, remorselessness, negative attitudes, sexual naiveté and/or irresponsibility, and perhaps substance abuse to a lesser extent."
In a letter to Judge Jodie Werier, Taylor said she was in a state of shock at the time of the birth and is now sorry for dumping her baby's body.
For the first six months of her sentence, Taylor will only be permitted to leave her home to go to work or visit the doctor. During the second half, she will be required to be in her home between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Taylor will also have to complete 50 hours of community service and must report if she becomes pregnant again.
Her boyfriend Trevor Silverwood was never charged for his role in dumping the body.
