text: Watching her boys play hockey, working nights at Tim Hortons and enjoying movies and walks in the park — it all sounds like a typical mom. 
   
   But 40-year-old Andrea Giesbrecht stands accused of concealing the bodies of six infants after their remains were found in a U-Haul storage locker earlier this week. 
   
   New details about Giesbrecht, also known as Andrea Naworynski, emerged from documents and a court hearing last month, in which she pleaded guilty to fraud over $5,000. 
   
   Court heard that Giesbrecht has struggled with a gambling addiction for at least 14 years. 
   
   Giesbrecht, 40, is charged with concealing the bodies of six infants in a U-Haul storage locker. (CBC) ​Giesbrecht was convicted of "borrowing" $7,850 from a 73-year-old woman, then writing bad cheques and not repaying her. 
   
   "I feel distraught and severely taken advantage of," the woman wrote in a victim impact statement. 
   
   A friend of Giesbrecht took a different view, in a letter to court that she wrote before the sentencing. 
   
   "In the five years I have known Andrea I have come to love her as a friend and person," wrote the friend. "She is a loving, considerate person and I have seen her drop everything to be there." 
   
   The two met through their boys' mutual hockey team. Giesbrecht has two teenage sons who are involved in hockey and soccer. 
   
   Started gambling in her teens 
   
   Giesbrecht, an only child, was born in York, Ont., but lived for most of her life in Winnipeg's Garden City and Maples neighbourhoods. 
   
   In the pre-sentence report, Giesbrecht was described as having a happy childhood, full of trips to the beach, Ukrainian dance, swimming lessons and church activities. 
   
   She met her husband at the age of 16. That's also about the time she began gambling, something that she watched her parents do while she was growing up. 
   
   Giesbrecht's gambling began with VLTs, and then card games. 
   
   According to the report, Giesbrecht first believed she had a gambling problem 14 years ago, when she could not pay rent. 
   
   During the worst of it, she said she could bet $500 at a time, many times over the course of a single evening, and would do this several times a week. 
   
   She would borrow thousands of dollars from her parents to feed the habit — money she never repaid, and money they never asked her for, according to documents. 
   
   Giesbrecht's parents have since died. 
   
   Caused tension with husband 
   
   Giesbrecht said this addiction caused tension with her husband and described gambling as the "number one problem" between them. 
   
   As for her husband, Giesbrecht said he could easily become agitated. A probation officer once had to ask him to leave a meeting after he "chastised" his wife and "refused to calm down." 
   
   The same officer described Giesbrecht as polite and respectful, but noted that she could be "highly excitable, easily distracted and unorganized." 
   
   The pre-sentence report concluded that she posed a low risk of re-offending for fraud. 
   
   Giesbrecht graduated from Red River College with a business administration diploma. In the past 10 years, she has worked for local organizations DASCH and St. Amant (which support people with disabilities), as well as a cleaning company. This spring, she began working at Tim Hortons. She also volunteers at Siloam Mission. 
   
   Giesbrecht is now charged with six counts of concealing bodies of infants after the remains were found in a U-Haul storage locker in Winnipeg's West Alexander neighbourhood on Monday. 
   
   U-Haul employees made the grim discovery when they went in to clear out the locker because rental payments had not been made. 
   
   Winnipeg police initially said they believed there were three or four bodies found in various states of decomposition, but they later raised the total to six. 
   
   Giesbrecht's next court date on the charges is Nov. 12. ||||| Photos View photos zoom 
   
   WINNIPEG—Police have charged a woman who was renting a storage locker where the remains of six babies were found Monday, but they say it could be months before they know who the infants were, how they died and how long they had been inside. 
   
   Andrea Giesbrecht, 40, was arrested outside her home in north Winnipeg. Const. Eric Hofley said she faces six charges of concealing a body and one charge of breaching probation. 
   
   Court records show that Giesbrecht, who has also used the name Andrea Naworynski, is a gambling addict with a low-paying job at a fast-food restaurant and recently admitted to defrauding a senior of several thousand dollars. 
   
   Hofley said it will take an extensive forensic investigation to determine if Giesbrecht is related to the dead infants. 
   
   More news at thestar.com: 
   
   The state of the remains discovered Monday was such that police were initially unable to determine how many babies were in the locker. Their ages are still unknown, but they are believed to have been newborns, he said. 
   
   “The forensics that are going to be involved in this investigation, they’re numerous,” Hofley said Wednesday. “It will be a long time before we’re able to answer these questions — if at all.” 
   
   There are no homicide charges right now and police aren’t interviewing any other suspects, he said. 
   
   “Nothing is ruled out until all the information has been gathered and processed,” Hofley said. “But, at this point, this is what is known and these are the charges that are appropriate at this time.” 
   
   Greg Brodsky, Giesbrecht’s lawyer, said he had seen a preliminary outline of the charges and met with his client. 
   
   “She’s in bewilderment,” he said. “But I can’t talk to you about what she said to me because that would be a breach of solicitor-client privilege.” 
   
   Giesbrecht was initially arrested on murder charges, but those weren’t the charges that were filed with the court, Brodsky said. That indicates the autopsy and forensic investigation isn’t complete yet, he said. 
   
   “The forensic examination is really important,” Brodsky said. “There has to be an autopsy conducted and more investigation done in order to determine where this case is going.” 
   
   The breach of probation charge relates to two charges of fraud over $5,000 that were laid against Giesbrecht in 2012. She was given a suspended sentence and two years of probation at a court hearing three weeks ago after pleading guilty to borrowing money from a 73-year-old neighbour and repaying her with bounced cheques. 
   
   Her lawyer at that hearing, Alan Libman, told the court that Giesbrecht’s parents were longtime gamblers who had “gambled away all their savings” before they died and left taxes unpaid on the house that Giesbrecht now lives in. 
   
   Gambling “was part of the family milieu,” Libman is heard to say in a recording of the proceedings. 
   
   Records indicate Giesbrecht was also unable to pay taxes and utilities, and borrowed money on more than one occasion from her neighbour. Eventually, she wrote two cheques to repay the woman. But the bank account the cheques were written on had been closed for two years. 
   
   Giesbrecht wanted to repay the woman, but was caught up in addiction, Libman told the hearing. 
   
   “The focus on this was to always pay it back. ‘I was going to get the winnings. I was going to make the slot machine come through for me,’ ” Libman said in reference to Giesbrecht’s thinking. 
   
   “All these things she talked about — her house being in arrears, not being able to pay bills — that all occurred because she gambled away all her money.” 
   
   Giesbrecht spoke briefly at her sentencing hearing and apologized to her neighbour for “bringing her into this chaos.” 
   
   Provincial court Judge Janice leMaistre ordered Giesbrecht to perform 100 hours of community service and to repay her victim $200 a month during her two-year probation. She was also ordered to stay out of casinos and video lottery terminal lounges. 
   
   Giesbrecht will be applying for bail on the new charges and a date for that hearing is expected to be set Thursday, Brodsky said. 
   
   Workers were taking inventory at a delinquent U-Haul storage locker on Monday when they found the remains of what police believed were three or four infants. The U-Haul employees immediately called police. 
   
   Even with an arrest, there are few answers to explain what may have happened. 
   
   Hofley wouldn’t say how long the remains were in the locker or how police believe they came to be there.
target: – Police in Winnipeg have charged a 40-year-old woman with six counts of concealing a body after they found the remains of six infants in a storage locker she rented. But the Toronto Star reports that it could be months before forensic tests determine how the babies died and whether Andrea Giesbrecht was their mother. Employees of the U-Haul facility opened the locker when Giesbrecht stopped making payments, and a court appearance late last month might shed light on why she fell behind. Giesbrecht pleaded guilty to defrauding an older neighbor of about $8,000 as evidence of a long-term gambling addiction came to light, reports the Winnipeg Sun. "I feel distraught and severely taken advantage of," her 73-year-old neighbor wrote in a victim-impact statement obtained by the CBC. But a friend of Giesbrecht came to her defense: "In the five years I have known Andrea, I have come to love her as a friend and person," she wrote. "She is a loving, considerate person and I have seen her drop everything to be there." Giesbrecht, who also has used the name Andrea Naworynski, is married and has two teenage sons. Court documents suggest she got hooked on gambling as a teenager and had repeatedly borrowed money from her now-dead parents that was never repaid.