Regina woman found not guilty in death of son

After three years of uncertainty, a Court of King’s Bench justice has brought down a decision of not guilty for Chelsea Whitby in the death of her young son.

Whitby’s son, 18-month old Emerson, died in June 2020 of blunt force trauma to the head. A little over a month later, the death was deemed a homicide by police, and a few weeks after that, Whitby was arrested.

On Tuesday morning, a King’s Bench justice handed down her verdict.

Whitby’s lawyer, Darren Kraushaar, spoke outside court after the verdict, saying it was something they were hoping for.

“It’s just a matter of now, you know, Chelsea’s got to decide what she’s going to do from here. Her life’s been on hold for three years so it’s just going to be a matter of moving forward from here,” he explained.

Kraushaar said it was quite a complicated case with a lot of evidentiary issues that took time to sort out.

“The medical evidence was complicated, there were wiretaps, there’s complicated statement issues (and) there was a lot of demeanor issues. There’s almost every evidentiary issue under the sun presented itself in this case, so I would say that it’s one of the more complex cases that we’ve seen,” he said.

According to Kraushaar, Whitby was relieved by the verdict.

On June 10 of 2020, police and other first responders were sent to investigate a report of an injured child. The child was in a home in the 3200 block of Arens Road near Prince of Wales Drive.

The boy was taken to hospital, where he later was pronounced dead.

The Saskatchewan Coroners Service and RPS opened an investigation into the death. In July of that year, police deemed the incident was Regina’s eighth homicide of 2020.