Mother denied bail in case of 3-year-old Montreal girl abandoned by Ontario highway

Bail has been denied for the Montreal mother accused of abandoning her three-year-old daughter next to an Ontario highway in June.

The 34-year-old woman, whose name is under a publication ban to protect the child’s identity, is set to undergo a 30-day psychiatric evaluation as ordered by the court.

She will return to court in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Que., west of Montreal, on Aug. 8.

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The woman has been charged with unlawful abandonment of a child and criminal negligence causing bodily harm after leaving her three-year-old daughter on the side of a highway in the rural area of Casselman and St. Albert in eastern Ontario on June 15.

She reported her daughter missing shortly after at a business in Coteau-du-Lac, west of Montreal, and told police she had no memory of the previous six hours or the girl’s whereabouts.

Quebec provincial police (SQ) and volunteer search teams spent days combing roadsides and forests in southwestern Quebec before discovering the accused had travelled to Ontario.

In what authorities called a “near miracle,” the three-year-old girl was found alive and conscious on June 18 by Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officers who spotted her by drone.

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