B.C. jury finds woman, 28, guilty of two counts of infanticide: lawyer

VANCOUVER – A 28-year-old Vancouver woman has been convicted of two counts of infanticide in the separate deaths of her two newborn sons.

Deliberations began on Saturday, but Sarah Leung’s lawyer, Richard Fowler, said in an email to The Canadian Press that the jury has now returned with the verdicts.

Fowler had urged the jury to convict his client of infanticide instead of second-degree murder, saying she was mentally and emotionally in denial of her actions and feared her parents’ disapproval.

Leung was charged with second-degree murder after she delivered the babies into the toilet of her family home and then disposed of them in plastic bags she tossed in the garbage.

Leung gave birth to her first baby in April 2009 and the second in March 2010, each time cleaning up the blood and hiding the evidence before telling her boyfriend she had miscarried.

Leung’s father found the first baby’s body in a clear plastic bag outside the house and told his son to call police, but the second baby’s body was not discovered because the garbage was picked up and police decided a search of the landfill would be unsuccessful.