VANCOUVER -- The private caregiver accused of starving Florence Girard – a woman with Down syndrome who lived with her in her Port Coquiltam home – has a history of defaulting on her bills, B.C. court records show.
Astrid Charlotte Dahl is charged with criminal negligence resulting in death, and failure to provide what are called "the necessaries of life."
Dahl has denied the charges and told CTV News she is in the process of gathering facts “that prove a different side of events.”
Now, a search of court records has uncovered that Dahl defaulted on her home mortgage, her vehicle payments and a credit card, with three court judgments from 2019 ordering her to repay her debts.
Records show Dahl was ordered in November 2019 to pay $50,998.04, plus interest and legal costs, after she defaulted on a mortgage to VWP Capital Corp. The order indicates that Dahl’s home can be sold “out of court by private sale subject to the approval of the court.”
A second judgment from June 2019 ordered Dahl to pay $6,878.07 to Capital One Bank after she failed to respond to a civil claim that she had defaulted on her card payments.
The third order, dated May 2019, orders Dahl to pay $22,827.11 to the Bank of Montreal after she failed to respond to a claim that she had stopped making payments on her 2012 Kia Optima Hybrid.
Records show the $22,737.85 loan for the vehicle was issued in January 2018, approximately nine months before Girard’s death.
In a conversation with CTV News on Facebook Messenger, Dahl acknowledged her financial troubles:
“Now I’m penniless & about to be homeless & forced to hear untruths about myself,” she wrote.
Dahl also referred to Girard as “family,” and wrote she had cared for Girard for nearly 30 years in total, approximately 10 of those in her own home.
“I have all the facts to back up what I say, otherwise I wouldn’t say them,” Dahl wrote.
Dahl’s first court appearance is scheduled for March.
