Christopher Pauchay sentenced to three years in prison for leaving his infants in a blizzard to die

A Canadian father was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday for leaving his two infants outside in a blizzard to die.

During a Canadian blizzard on January 29, 2008, Christopher Pauchay, who was drunk, took his 1and 3-year-old daughters, who were only wearing diapers and T-shirts, and walked to a neighbor’s house.

When he arrived at his neighbor’s house, he was suffering from severe frostbite; he was taken to a hospital.

Eight hours after being admitted into the hospital when he was able to speak, he asked about his children, which set off a frantic search that ended hours later when the girls were found dead in a field.

Authorities said that the recorded temperature on the day in question was 58 below zero, including wind chills.

The children’s mother, Pauchay’s common-law wife, who was not home on the night in question, is standing by her man saying, “There are a lot of people that think wrongly about me.  Those were my girls and I loved them, and he is my husband and I love him.”

Last month, Pauchay, who is a member of the Yellow Quill First Nation, told the sentencing judge that he should never have been charged with a crime, and said that the deaths were an accident.

A prosecutor in the case argued that Pauchay deserved the maximum sentence saying, “he made a choice to get drunk while he was taking care of his daughters. Furthermore, he rejected help from his brother-in-law who realized he was drunk that night.”

After his sentencing, the judge called for an addiction treatment center for the 900 members of the Yellow Quill First Nation reserve, which has been plagued for decades by alcohol abuse, high unemployment and a lack of housing.