Infanticide case adjourned as court awaits mental health assessment

The case of a Charlottetown woman charged with infanticide has been adjourned until March 5 while the court awaits a mental health assessment.

Shannon Dawn Rayner, 39, is accused in the deaths of two infants, in 2014 and 2016.

She was in provincial court Wednesday with her lawyer, Thane MacEachern.

Rayner was at the East Coast Forensic Hospital in Dartmouth, N.S., for two days in December.

Assessment not complete

The court was supposed to get a mental health assessment to determine whether Rayner is fit to stand trial, but that assessment has not been completed.

Court heard there is a backlog of assessments to be completed at the hospital in Nova Scotia.

MacEachern said he will prepare a new assessment order to the hospital and request it be completed by the end of February.

Six charges

Rayner was charged on July 11, 2018. She faces six charges in all: two of infanticide, two of failing to seek assistance in childbirth and two counts of disposing of the dead body of a child with the intent to conceal the fact it had been delivered.

No bodies have been recovered.

Police had been investigating since March 2017, when they received a report of a woman who had been pregnant twice but didn't appear to have any young children.

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