"Ms. Waudby has coped for the last 14 years out of necessity for Justine and her son Mac, 12.
"What else do you do? You live or die. You have to go through it. You cope. I've grasped onto hope and hope is what has got me through. There was that glimmer at the end of the tunnel."
When asked what that glimmer was she replies, "I knew it wasn't me. It was trying to convince other people it wasn't me."
People have now heard her."
REPORTER LAUREN GILCHRIST; MY KAWARTHA;
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: It is clear from the evidence called at the Goudge inquiry that Brenda Waudby - an utterly innocent individual who's baby daughter had been murdered by her babysitter - had been required to plead guilty to a charge of child abuse under provincial legislation before the Crown would withdraw the the second-degree murder charge on the basis of medical opinions which showed she could not possibly have committed the crime. It is also clear that Dr. Charles Smith's opinion that there were injuries which preceded the attack on Baby Jenna - which led to her being wrongfully charged with murder - was also the basis for the provincial charge, along with what the police claimed to be a confession. Instead of receiving the sympathy and compassion she deserved as a grieving mother whose baby daughter had been murdered, Ms. Waudby, a grieving mother, was herself charged with the horrific crime and not surprisingly became a pariah in her community. Brenda Waudby has been given a raw deal by Ontario's criminal justice system. We can only hope that the Court will hurry up and finally and unequivocally clear her name;
HAROLD LEVY; PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG.
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"(PETERBOROUGH) Brenda Waudby's excitement bounces through the air and off the walls like a pin-ball," the My Kawartha story by reporter Lauren Gilchrist published on June 17, 2011 undeR the heading, "Brenda Waudby's fresh start," begins.
"She's already hit the Fleming College bookstore. Jumping up from her chair, she models her new black track pants that have Fleming written down one leg in chunky, bright pink letters," the story continues.
"She laughs as she explains how nervous she is about going back to school and how ridiculous she feels about being nervous.
She's 46 years old. She hasn't seen the inside of a classroom for 28 years. But this September she is starting a two-year program at Fleming College.
Her goal is to become a paralegal. She's happy.
"It's going to be a big change. It's definitely going to be a challenge. Very exciting, but nervous," she says.
She is no stranger to the inside of a courtroom. She always had an interest in law, but the last 14 years of her life have compounded that interest.
In the early hours of Jan. 21, 1997 her daughter Jenna Mellor was murdered in her Mountain Ash Road home. The 14-year-old male babysitter had poked and punched her for several hours. He was angry that his mom had volunteered him to work that night. Jenna was just 21 months old. Her murder launched a decade-long search for the killer.
Ms Waudby was originally charged with that murder. This meant jail time and having her eldest daughter, Justine Traynor, taken from her custody.
"You scream and nobody hears you. You're screaming as loud as you can. Every time I screamed it just fell on deaf ears," she says of pleading her innocence.
Evidence from now disgraced pediatric pathologist Dr. Charles Smith contributed to her conviction since he erroneously pinpointed the time of Jenna's fatal injury to a time when Ms Waudby was home and her daughter was in her care. In 1999, the second-degree murder charge against Ms Waudby was dropped.
But it wasn't until nearly 10 years after the crime that the babysitter confessed, pleading guilty to manslaughter. He was sentenced to 22 months in jail and 11 months house arrest, the maximum sentence for manslaughter under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The killer, who is now in his late twenties, can't be publicly identified because he was a minor when the crime took place.
Jenna's killer is out. Dr. Smith has been stripped of his medical license and slapped with a fine.
And Ms Waudby has been left to sort through the last 14 years of her life, scavenging for any salvageable parts to make something better for the future.
"The process of healing is ongoing. There is always that loss that you carry," she says.
"Life goes on. We can't stop because Jenna is gone. We have to carry on."
When she thinks about Jenna she imagines what the little girl would be doing now.
"She would be maybe driving a car, she would be 16, she would be getting ready to graduate high school next year. Her and Justine, I think would have been the best of friends."
Ms Waudby recognizes the importance of forgiveness.
"You have to forgive to move on because you have to make peace with yourself. I haven't got there yet," she explains.
"I can forgive him but you never forget. Forgiveness, I think, is for your own personal healing."
And there is another angle to forgiveness.
"I get angry with myself because of leaving them [the kids]," she says.
Although she had to deal with being branded a child killer for years, she holds no grudge against the public.
"I try and put myself in everyone else's shoes. I think I would have judged me the same," she explains.
"The way things looked then, pretty convincing, from what was released, from what the public knew was going on. All that you [the media] can report is what you're given by the police. As we know, the police don't give you everything."
She was judged before. Now she says that judgement is different.
"People's perception has obviously changed. I'm sure there are still the skeptics out there. I haven't run into anybody. Anybody that has approached me has felt sympathetic for what went on."
Ms Waudby says the case against her would have gone down differently if she hadn't been a drug addict and on welfare at the time.
"It was the way I was...some of that was my own doing. I put myself there, but because I was there did not make me a murderer," she explains.
"Being a drug addict doesn't make you a murderer, being in poverty doesn't make you a murderer. Dr. Smith was like that. He could look at people's past and go 'You have little money, you're an addict, oh, you did this.' As soon as he did that he put you in a certain class."
Although now clean, Ms Waudby will always consider herself an addict.
"I never forget where I came from."
She doesn't know what will happen to Dr. Smith in the future.
"I don't care what he did to me," she says. "I couldn't have it on my conscious. I don't want something like that on my conscious. He's still a human being."
Ms Waudby has coped for the last 14 years out of necessity for Justine and her son Mac, 12.
"What else do you do? You live or die. You have to go through it. You cope. I've grasped onto hope and hope is what has got me through. There was that glimmer at the end of the tunnel."
When asked what that glimmer was she replies, "I knew it wasn't me. It was trying to convince other people it wasn't me."
People have now heard her.
She is still waiting to resolve a civil lawsuit against police and prosecutors and to secure compensation from an inquiry into Dr. Smith's errors. However, her focus now is on school.
Justine, 21, is also starting at Fleming this September in the Child and Youth Worker program.
"It will be interesting to go to the same school at the same time as my daughter," says Ms Waudby, laughing.
For now her future is school. After completing the two-year paralegal program she will then take the law clerk program, adding up to a total of three years at Fleming. Then she wants to work, likely in Peterborough.
"I don't really want to leave Peterborough. I like the town. I like the city. Bad things happened here. Should I leave here to start anew? I don't know."
And if she ever leaves Peterborough for work, Jenna is going with her.
The toddler's buried underneath a pine tree in Little Lake cemetery.
But Jenna goes where her mom goes.
"Her remains are there. But as for Jenna, Jenna is always with me." "
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The story can be found at:
http://www.mykawartha.com/news/article/1029762--brenda-waudby-s-fresh-start
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=120008354894645705&postID=8369513443994476774
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
