WARNING: This story contains details of a newborn baby’s death that readers may find disturbing.
The sentencing hearing started for a Kindersley, Sask., woman whose actions resulted in the death of her newborn child in September 2018.
Teenie Steer entered a guilty plea to manslaughter in May after being charged with second-degree murder.
An agreed statement of facts read in court on Oct. 18 heard that Steer told police that she lost control after four days of little to no sleep and threw her newborn daughter against a wood, living room wall.
Her daughter was 27 days old and was born prematurely, weighing around four pounds, and that she was a twin.
Steer said that her daughter was colic and wasn’t settling.
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Crown prosecutor Janyne Laing laid out how Steer misled the RCMP by not telling officers she had thrown her daughter against the wall until 17 months after the incident took place.
Court also heard that she and some members of her family agreed on a story to tell Mounties when the investigation started.
An autopsy revealed the newborn died from blunt-force trauma to the head and that the girl had a nine-centimetre skull fracture and a hemorrhaged brain.
In her first police interview, Steer told officers that no one in her family would harm her daughter, but that her three-year-old daughter played rough with the newborn twins and that the family dog might have jumped on her.
Steer, who used to work at a daycare, appeared by video and is being held at Saskatchewan Hospital in North Battleford where she is receiving mental health and psychiatric support.
The Crown is asking for an eight-year sentence, but the defence is asking for a sentence between four years and four years and eight months.
Steer’s lawyer Barbara Degenstien noted considering the time she has already served, a four-year sentence would mean Steer would have less than two years remaining and is asking the judge to consider a provincial sentence rather than a federal one.
She noted it would give Steer the opportunity to serve the rest of her sentence at the hospital while receiving that treatment.
Justice Gerald Allbright has reserved his decision until Dec. 3.
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