Officer describes shallow grave discovery of mother, daughter at Calgary murder trial
CBC
A Calgary police officer says he smelled a strong odour of gasoline or solvent before he and a colleague found the bodies of a mother and daughter in a shallow grave southwest of the city two years ago.
Const. Malcolm May was testifying Wednesday at the second-degree murder trial of Robert Leeming in the death of 22-month-old Aliyah Sanderson.
Leeming pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree murder in the death of Jasmine Lovett, the girl's mother, but not guilty in the girl's death.
Lovett and her daughter went missing in April 2019, two weeks before she turned 26, and weeks later Leeming told undercover officers the location of their bodies.
They were found on May 6, 2019, near Grizzly Creek, a day-use area in Kananaskis Country west of Calgary.
May testified the bodies were wrapped in blankets and had blue plastic bags wrapped around their heads.
"We opened the blanket up to check to see what was inside and we discovered the body of a young child wrapped within this blanket and bag," he said.