Something tragic happened a long time ago in a unremarkable home on a quiet street in London, Ont.
Now authorities are trying to figure out why and how it took place.
The grisly story first emerged when a man went down to the basement of his home on the weekend to look for some stored family photos and gasped at a sight he couldn't believe - the decomposing body of a baby lying long unnoticed in the cellar.
Police were called and the case just kept getting worse. They say they've now found the remains of two other infants in the same area, all in states of decomposition.
The babies were found in the same container, but the condition of their bodies made it hard to tell at first if there was more than one child inside or what their ages or genders might have been.
Jennifer Sinn, a 32-year-old former resident of the home, has been arrested and is charged with concealing the body of a child and offering an indignity to a body. But how the infants died, why they were hidden in that dark hiding place, or who the parents were, all have yet to be determined.
A neighbour, who knows the man who found the remains, spoke to
CityNews.
"I am ready to just pack up and go, I can't sleep it's just disturbing, unbelievable," said Karen Elliott.
"He found these (boxes in the basement) and he opened them up and found bloody clothing and bloody blankets inside at which case then he called the police," she adds. "He said (his) girlfriend has been carrying these boxes around for two years with her, and so he finally decided to open one looking for his stuff and that's what (he) found.
Elliott was present when police brought the boxes outside and began examining their contents.
"I just saw what looked like to be a sleeper with blood all over it and blankets, and I really don't want to talk about it, now that I know what it was," she said, sobbing.
There are many other unanswered questions in this case including why Sinn was charged when others lived in the house and how old the infants were at the time of their deaths. Police are refusing to say much about the accused, citing concerns over evidence.
The remains were found in the basement of this home
Do police think foul play is at work? They're not yet willing to go that far. "Right now we are investigating a suspicious death," is all Det. Supt. Ken Heslop will say. "I think it's a disturbing case for everybody involved. I don't think in your wildest dreams that you expect to do an investigation that has three decomposing infants altogether. I don't think you can imagine that and not certainly not something that I've heard of before."
The bodies will be taken to a lab at the Centre for Forensic Science in Toronto on Wednesday with the hope an autopsy and a DNA analysis the next day will give authorities the answers they seek. Cops admit it's possible they could have been in the basement for "years."
Depending on what those tests show, the charges against Sinn could be upgraded.
"The only way the charge could be upgraded is after the post mortem examination and we get a cause of death from the coroner that tells us that that it was in fact foul play or was murder before we can upgrade the charges," Heslop concludes.