waudby temp

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Brenda Waudby is the mother of Baby Jenna who was born in Peterborough, Ontario and died on January 22, 1997, at the age of 21 months. On January 21, 1997, at approximately 5 p.m., Ms. Waudby left Jenna in the care of a babysitter, J.D., who was 14 years old at the time. That night, Jenna was taken to a local hospital, where she died. Dr. Charles Smith performed the autopsy, concluded that Jenna had died of blunt abdominal trauma, and came up with a time of death that gave Ms. Waudby exclusive access to Baby Jenna at the time the fatal injuries were inflicted. Smith seized a dark, curly, male-type pubic hair from Baby Jenna's vulva-area, concealed it from the police officer who attended the autopsy, failed to submit it for testing, and had it in his possession when testifying at Ms. Waudby's preliminary hearing that he didn't know anything about it. He also failed to conduct a standard rape test which would likely have shown that Baby Jenna had been sexually assaulted. The Peterborough police force sent an undercover officer into Ms. Waudby's Narcotic's Anonymous group in an effort to get incriminating evidence against her. On September 18, 1997, the police charged Ms. Waudby with second-degree murder based on Smith's opinion. In October 1998, following a preliminary hearing, the court committed Ms. Waudby to stand trial on the charge, placing her one step closer to a sentence of life imprisonment for murdering her daughter if convicted. On June 15, 1999, the Crown withdrew the charge after receiving the unanimous opinions of several experts appointed by both the prosecution and the defence which utterly contradicted Smith's opinion and stated that Ms. Waudby could not possibly have been present when Jenna suffered her fatal injuries. (As a result of Smith's terribly flawed opinion, Ms. Waudby, who had lost her daughter through a horrific crime, found herself locked into a brutal battle with the local Children's Aid Society, to recover an older daughter from the authorities and to keep a newly born son. In July, 2001, (two years later), the police began a reinvestigation of Jenna’s death. JD confessed to the police that he had sexually assaulted the two and a half years old baby and killed her. In December 2006, J.D. was permitted to plead guilty to manslaughter and the two counts of sexual assault were dropped. He was sentenced as a youth to 22 months in custody, followed by 11 months of community supervision. Smith has yet to face any criminal charges in relation to his conduct in the Waudby case. Like Dr. Smith's many other victims, Ms. Waudby has yet to receive a single cent of compensation for the utterly hellish ordeal she experienced at the hands of Dr. Charles Smith, the police and the prosecutors.

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