Quebec mother who pleaded guilty in daughter’s death testifies at coroner’s inquest

QUEBEC — A mother who pleaded guilty earlier this year to killing her two-year-old daughter told a coroner’s inquest that she was desperate and broke at the time of the murder.

Audrey Gagnon testified that she was living in an “unsanitary squat” after being kicked out of a women’s shelter and had no money left to feed her daughter.

Gagnon, now 25, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of her daughter Rosalie, whom she admitted to fatally stabbing in Quebec City in 2018.

Gagnon told coroner Gehane Kamel via video-conference that she’d had a difficult few years and was at a psychiatric hospital when she learned that she’d become pregnant from an unknown man at age 21.

But she said Rosalie’s birth in 2016 brought her a lot of joy, and she considered herself a good mother, even though she struggled with two relapses in her recovery from drug addiction.

But she said she became increasingly desperate and anxious when, less than a week before Rosalie’s death, she was asked to leave the women’s shelter where she’d been staying.

“I was desperate and I didn’t know what to do any more,” she said.

Gagnon said she was asked to leave the shelter after being accused of breaking rules and of bad behaviour.

Earlier this week, a staff member testified that Gagnon threatened her, which Gagnon denied despite not remembering the entire incident. “I would never do that,” she said.

Gagnon said that she had nowhere to go and was afraid of having her daughter taken by child services. 

She said she called other shelters and resources, but was unable to find anywhere to go. She said she couldn’t go back to her mother’s apartment because child services had warned her not to take her daughter there.

Ultimately, she moved in with a friend in an apartment she described as unsanitary and dangerous for her child.

She said Rosalie “cried non-stop” in the following days, and Gagnon became consuming marijuana and alcohol as she became increasingly anxious and depressed in the time leading up to the murder.

Her testimony did not touch directly on the murder of Rosalie, who was stabbed more than 30 times and her body left in a garbage can. 

The coroner said the goals of the inquest are to examine the factors that contributed to the death and to make recommendations. He said the manner in which the toddler was killed is not part of that mandate.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 10, 2020

The Canadian Press