A P.E.I. woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to a third infanticide.
Shannon Dawn Rayner, 40, of Charlottetown will be sentenced on all three infanticide convictions Sept. 10. She will also be sentenced on one count of disposing a child’s body with intent to conceal the fact it had been delivered.
In the first two cases of infanticide, Rayner was initially charged with two counts of disposing of a child’s body with intent to conceal the fact. Those charges were stayed after she pleaded guilty to the two counts of infanticide dating back to 2014 and 2016.
Charlottetown police found those bodies at Rayner’s residence in September 2018.
A court-ordered mental health assessment was delayed several months with Provincial Court Judge John Douglas eventually issuing a new order. When it was completed, the assessment report included the opinion Rayner didn’t meet the condition of being not criminally responsible.
Douglas found Rayner was fit to stand trial.
A pre-sentence report was ordered and sentencing on the first two infanticide charges was scheduled for June 5.
That sentencing, however, was delayed after police charged Rayner with a third count of infanticide after finding skeletal remains on May 7 in a shed in Charlottetown.
Residents of Walnut Drive told The Guardian at the time that police converged on the property where they say Rayner had lived for at least a few years but had not been living recently.
One neighbour said he and his wife were stunned when they first heard Rayner had been charged with two counts of infanticide in July 2018.
“We were shocked,’’ he said.
“We were shocked and sort of felt sorry for the predicament she was in.’’
The third infanticide charge against Rayner had the couple shaking their head in disbelief yet again.
“We’re further shocked…it’s continuing tale,’’ he said.
The man added that Rayner used to strike him as a good mother, regularly walking children he believed to be her son and daughter to school, bringing them lunches, and doing errands like cutting the grass on her mother’s property.
“She seemed to be very caring,’’ he said.
Another resident, who also declined to give her name, told The Guardian in May it was unfathomable to think someone she had lived next to could possibly take the lives of three of her own babies.
“A mind can’t process that…how could a person process that? Three of them,’’ she said.
Charlottetown Police Deputy Chief Brad MacConnell said at the time the three infanticide cases were extremely challenging for police on an emotional level.
“Police work can be difficult at times but situations that involve children are especially difficult for police to deal with,’’ he said.
“And when we have multiple incidents of tragedy then it weighs on all of us, for sure, no question.’’
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