DeafMonkey
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TorontoSun.com - Toronto And GTA - Was there a second baby?
Was there a second baby?
Woman's lawyer denies allegation she let another tot die
Head downcast, her long brown hair falling over heavy brows, Ivana Levkovic makes her first Toronto court appearance.
She is up and down in mere moments and in that short time, you study her features for some answer. But she offers no clues, no hints, as to how any woman could be charged with the gruesome disposal of not just one newborn, but two.
One dead baby girl kept in a garbage bag and left as so much litter for a hapless superintendent to discover in Mississauga. And now these latest allegations, that she gave birth to another baby back in 2002 or 2003 and this poor infant's body was kept in a freezer for years before it was finally dumped into the frigid Humber River in January 2005.
Perhaps, if you were a very generous sort, you could put one case down to a momentary case of insanity, a young mother who panicked after childbirth or was too far gone on drugs to give the baby the assistance she needed.
But not even a saint can understand such horror happening a second time.
That is, if it actually did happen twice.
You search the prisoner's dock for a monster and all you find is a rather ordinary looking woman. The 24-year-old had given up her life as a stripper and was waiting tables at a restaurant at Caledonia and Lawrence when she was arrested Tuesday. She is brought into College Park court handcuffed but clear-eyed, wearing a light brown parka and jeans. Tall and pretty, she gives her name in a slight Croatian accent.
No one is in court for her this day, not her lawyer -- who says by phone later that she is "absolutely, categorically and unequivocally not guilty" -- and not the now dead "male acquaintance" who betrayed her back in January 2005.
According to police, he walked into 13 Division one Sunday and told them his gruesome tale, that his girlfriend had given birth several years ago and didn't seek the medical attention the baby needed. When the newborn died, she stuffed it in a freezer and there it remained for years until a few days before when she asked a man to wrap the tiny corpse in garbage bags and dump it in the river near Black Creek Dr. and Weston Rd.
DISAPPEARED
The woman had since disappeared.
A dead baby jammed into a freezer? A heartless mother who could leave a tiny body to rot for years? If it all seems too macabre to be true, that's because it is, says Levkovic's lawyer.
Michael Moon insists that there was never any baby and the entire story was fabricated by a vengeful pimp who was angry that she'd finally broken away from him.
"It never happened," he says. "Their witness who they say came forward is a drug-dealing pimp who is now dead. How can they even prove their case? They have no body, they have no witness."
The Toronto police marine unit searched the river from top to bottom and never did find an infant's body.
Her lawyer claims police only decided to arrest her after she "dared" indicate last week that she will challenge the Peel charge. "She has the audacity to fight back and attack the archaic law under which she's being charged.
"What they're trying to do is humiliate her and pressure her to give in but they're underestimating the steel in her spine if they think they're going to brow beat her down."
Toronto Police Det. Sgt. Larry Brien stands by their investigation and says it picked up steam this past spring when details they had posted on a Canadian police computer matched a similar investigation launched in Mississauga.
Peel Police had found that Levkovic was a sometime resident of a Mississauga apartment where a superintendent had just discovered the remains of a newborn baby girl. Four days after his grisly find, Levkovic turned herself in.
CHARGED
In April, she was charged with concealing the body of a child and released on bail.
Now Toronto Police have charged her with neglecting to obtain assistance during child birth and concealing the body of another child allegedly born more than three years before.
At the Weston Rd. triplex where Levkovic once lived with her late boyfriend, the superintendent is outside cleaning the yard when she is told of the new charges. "They did arrest her then?" she says, shaking her head.
Toronto police closed off the home's entire basement earlier this year, she says. At first, she thought it was a drug-related investigation. When they told her it was about a dead baby that may have been kept in a tenant's freezer more than a year before, she was horrified.
"I couldn't believe it. I thought they were full of hot air," recalls the super, not wanting to give her name.
"She was a very good kid, but she was a stripper, what do you want? I can't imagine she could do something like that, but then I can't imagine that anyone could do something like that."
None of us can.
Levkovic, who had a prostitution charge withdrawn in 2004, always kept to herself, she recalls.
And one last thing. She can't remember her being pregnant.
And then with a shiver, she disappears back into the home that may -- or may not -- have been a baby's icy crypt.
Was there a second baby?
Woman's lawyer denies allegation she let another tot die
Head downcast, her long brown hair falling over heavy brows, Ivana Levkovic makes her first Toronto court appearance.
She is up and down in mere moments and in that short time, you study her features for some answer. But she offers no clues, no hints, as to how any woman could be charged with the gruesome disposal of not just one newborn, but two.
One dead baby girl kept in a garbage bag and left as so much litter for a hapless superintendent to discover in Mississauga. And now these latest allegations, that she gave birth to another baby back in 2002 or 2003 and this poor infant's body was kept in a freezer for years before it was finally dumped into the frigid Humber River in January 2005.
Perhaps, if you were a very generous sort, you could put one case down to a momentary case of insanity, a young mother who panicked after childbirth or was too far gone on drugs to give the baby the assistance she needed.
But not even a saint can understand such horror happening a second time.
That is, if it actually did happen twice.
You search the prisoner's dock for a monster and all you find is a rather ordinary looking woman. The 24-year-old had given up her life as a stripper and was waiting tables at a restaurant at Caledonia and Lawrence when she was arrested Tuesday. She is brought into College Park court handcuffed but clear-eyed, wearing a light brown parka and jeans. Tall and pretty, she gives her name in a slight Croatian accent.
No one is in court for her this day, not her lawyer -- who says by phone later that she is "absolutely, categorically and unequivocally not guilty" -- and not the now dead "male acquaintance" who betrayed her back in January 2005.
According to police, he walked into 13 Division one Sunday and told them his gruesome tale, that his girlfriend had given birth several years ago and didn't seek the medical attention the baby needed. When the newborn died, she stuffed it in a freezer and there it remained for years until a few days before when she asked a man to wrap the tiny corpse in garbage bags and dump it in the river near Black Creek Dr. and Weston Rd.
DISAPPEARED
The woman had since disappeared.
A dead baby jammed into a freezer? A heartless mother who could leave a tiny body to rot for years? If it all seems too macabre to be true, that's because it is, says Levkovic's lawyer.
Michael Moon insists that there was never any baby and the entire story was fabricated by a vengeful pimp who was angry that she'd finally broken away from him.
"It never happened," he says. "Their witness who they say came forward is a drug-dealing pimp who is now dead. How can they even prove their case? They have no body, they have no witness."
The Toronto police marine unit searched the river from top to bottom and never did find an infant's body.
Her lawyer claims police only decided to arrest her after she "dared" indicate last week that she will challenge the Peel charge. "She has the audacity to fight back and attack the archaic law under which she's being charged.
"What they're trying to do is humiliate her and pressure her to give in but they're underestimating the steel in her spine if they think they're going to brow beat her down."
Toronto Police Det. Sgt. Larry Brien stands by their investigation and says it picked up steam this past spring when details they had posted on a Canadian police computer matched a similar investigation launched in Mississauga.
Peel Police had found that Levkovic was a sometime resident of a Mississauga apartment where a superintendent had just discovered the remains of a newborn baby girl. Four days after his grisly find, Levkovic turned herself in.
CHARGED
In April, she was charged with concealing the body of a child and released on bail.
Now Toronto Police have charged her with neglecting to obtain assistance during child birth and concealing the body of another child allegedly born more than three years before.
At the Weston Rd. triplex where Levkovic once lived with her late boyfriend, the superintendent is outside cleaning the yard when she is told of the new charges. "They did arrest her then?" she says, shaking her head.
Toronto police closed off the home's entire basement earlier this year, she says. At first, she thought it was a drug-related investigation. When they told her it was about a dead baby that may have been kept in a tenant's freezer more than a year before, she was horrified.
"I couldn't believe it. I thought they were full of hot air," recalls the super, not wanting to give her name.
"She was a very good kid, but she was a stripper, what do you want? I can't imagine she could do something like that, but then I can't imagine that anyone could do something like that."
None of us can.
Levkovic, who had a prostitution charge withdrawn in 2004, always kept to herself, she recalls.
And one last thing. She can't remember her being pregnant.
And then with a shiver, she disappears back into the home that may -- or may not -- have been a baby's icy crypt.
.. I see "view" said 29 without post? 
