Winnipeg police boats and divers were in the Assiniboine River Friday behind the home in Westwood where two children died Wednesday. The divers entered the water Friday morning and were still at work in the same area Friday evening.
Officers are searching for the children’s mother, 32 year old Lisa Gibson, who disappeared after the bodies of her two children Nicholas, 3 months and Anna, 2 years, were found in a bathtub in their home on Coleridge Park Drive.
Winnipeg police Cst. Eric Hofley says police are still hopeful Gibson is alive but they have to explore the possibility that she may be in the river.
“Our ultimate hope and wish is that we do locate Ms Gibson alive. Having said that it is the 3rd day of the investigation and it is incumbent upon us to investigate all avenues, she was a resident near the river so we have to investigate that as well.”
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He says autopsies have been completed on the two children but police aren’t releasing the cause of death. Police say Gibson was the last person with the children, and that she is still considered a “person of interest” in the case.
A makeshift memorial to the children continued to grow on the front lawn of the home and a couple of dozen people gathered for a vigil nearby on Thursday night.
“It’s a sad thing to happen anywhere and when it happens so close to home it just kind of hits home that much harder, that whatever happened to those children,” said Charmain Palka in front of the Gibson home Friday.
Expert observers have commented Gibson’s case resembles an episode of postpartum psychosis, an extreme form of the kind of depression many new moms face. A neighbour told Global News Gibson had struggled with depression.
With files from Canadian Press
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