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A coroner’s inquest into the deaths of four Indigenous women at the emergency shelter in Whitehorse began on the morning of April 8. The proceedings are being held at the Best Western Gold Rush Inn and are expected to last roughly three weeks.
The deaths being probed are those of Cassandra Warville, Myranda Aleisha Dawn Tizya-Charlie, Josephine Elizabeth Hager and Darla Skookum. According to the inquiry’s presiding coroner, Michael Eglison, all four deaths occurred while the now-deceased were accessing services at the Whitehorse Emergency Shelter at 405 Alexander St.
The inquest’s six jurors are tasked with ascertaining the identity of the deceased individuals, the time and place of their deaths, and the causes of death. Jurors are also asked to classify the deaths — natural, accidental, suicide, homicide or undetermined manners of death — and submit recommendations to prevent similar fatalities, if deemed appropriate.
The presiding coroner made clear in his introductory remarks that the goal of the inquest is to explore the circumstances and causes of the four deaths and how to avoid future similar deaths. He noted that the inquest would not examine the Yukon’s substance-use emergency.
“This inquest will not investigate the Yukon’s toxic drug crisis or whether the shelter should be or not be a low barrier shelter. We will not investigate the reasons behind the deceased use of substances or the reasons the deceased were at the shelter. These issues are beyond the scope of this proceeding,” Eglison said.
On the first day of the inquiry, participants heard from relatives of Warville and Tizya-Charlie and RCMP officers who investigated and responded to their deaths.
Warville and Tizya-Charlie were found together, unresponsive, in a shower room at the emergency shelter and declared dead by first responders in the early morning hours of Jan. 19, 2022. Both women were in their mid-30s and citizens of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in Old Crow.
Warville’s sister spoke before the inquiry, reminiscing about her sister and Tizya-Charlie, whom she called her “best friend.” Through tears, she recounted the impact their deaths had on her.
“I’m still hurt every day, every time I wake up and think of the both of you. You will both remain in my heart, yesterday, today and tomorrow,” she said.
Tizya-Charlie’s mother also shared about her daughter’s athletic pursuits, particularly as a hockey player. She noted that drug-related deaths are simply a “reality today” and that she hopes awareness of her daughter’s story can help save others from a similar fate.
“I want to make awareness out of my daughter’s story and share her story. And even if we could help just one family or two families, that’s okay,” Tizya-Charlie’s mother said before adding that she’d like to arrange a walk to honour the four women whose deaths are being probed by the inquest.
RCMP Const. Andrew Imrie, who was involved in the investigation of Warville and Tizya-Charlie’s deaths, testified about the surveillance video captured inside the emergency shelter on the night of Jan. 18-19, 2022.
The footage was played for inquest participants and elicited an emotional response from some in the audience.
In one video, the bodies of both deceased individuals can be seen being dragged by their feet from a shower room in the shelter. The footage shows the bodies being pulled from the shower room, down a hallway and into the shelter’s reception area, where CPR is administered. The arrival of paramedics and police officers can also be seen in at least one of the videos.
Const. Derek Kirstein was among the officers who responded to the emergency shelter on the night that Warville and Tizya-Charlie died, and he also testified before the inquest. He confirmed that a used crack pipe was found on Warville, and a “piece of plastic that usually contains drugs” and brass filters for a pipe were discovered on Tizya-Charlie.
On the second day of the inquest, two shelter staffers seen in the videos played the previous day testified before the inquiry. The supervisor on shift at the shelter on the night of Warville and Tizya-Charlie’s deaths testified about finding the duo unresponsive in the shower room — Warville “sprawled out” on the toilet and Tizya-Charlie on the floor in the fetal position.
“To be honest, I recognized the ominous situation I was in. I saw the blueing of Myranda, (so) I took the nasal naloxone I had, and I gave it to Cassandra, thinking these are the best odds,” the supervisor, who no longer works at the shelter, told the inquiry.
The now-former supervisor said that the women’s bodies were moved to the reception area due to the small size of the shower room, which prevented the easy administration of CPR.
Both emergency shelter employees who testified on day two of the inquest mentioned being short-staffed on the night of Jan. 18-19, 2022. Only three staff members were on shift the whole night.
When asked if it was normal to have only three people on shift throughout the night, the former supervisor said he did not believe so.
“The government deemed it to be normal, but I did not believe so. As a matter of fact, that night, when I realized the situation of staffing, I had put a letter out to my superior […] in regards to the unacceptability of it,” he said, later adding that the minimum number of staff on duty at the shelter at night was raised to four in the wake of this incident.
The shelter employees said they received training on administering naloxone but expressed that they received minimal instruction on substance use and drug overdoses.
Inquests held by the Yukon Coroner’s Service are intended to serve three main functions: determine the facts related to a death (or deaths), make recommendations — if appropriate and supported by evidence — to prevent future deaths in similar circumstances and assure the community that the death (or deaths) is not being overlooked or ignored.
Coroner’s inquests are not an adversarial process or trial and are not intended to assign blame.
Although inquests into more than one death are uncommon, the chief coroner can call a single inquest into more than one death if the facts and circumstances of the deaths are “sufficiently similar” to the extent that a “common inquest is the most efficient and effective way of inquiring into the deaths,” according to the Yukon’s Coroners Act.
“It is rare to investigate more than one or two deaths or certainly a single incident at one time. To my knowledge, this may be the first time that we have called an inquest into more than one death that do not occur at the same time. In 2012, an inquest was called into the deaths of five individuals who died under the same circumstances due to carbon monoxide poisoning on January 29, 2012,” Heather Jones, the Yukon’s chief coroner, told the News via email.
The coroner’s inquest continues on April 10, when proceedings will move on to the circumstances of Hager’s death. It is expected the inquest will move on to Skookum’s death on or around April 15. Both Hager and Skookum died at the shelter in early 2023.
Contact Matthew Bossons at matthew.bossons@yukon-news.com