INQUEST CONFRONTS THE ALCOHOL FACTOR
There are several rivers associated with the deaths of the seven aboriginal young people who died in this city on Lake Superior over the course of almost 11 years.
A coroner’s inquest into all seven deaths is now proceeding before Dr. David Eden and a fivemember jury.
There is the McIntyre River, in or near where four boys ( Curran Strang, 18, Reggie Bushie, 15, Kyle Morrisseau, 17, and Jordan Wabasse, 15) died.
There is the Kaministiquia River, or The Kam, near which the body of another boy, Jethro Anderson, was discovered.
The names of these rivers fairly roll off the tongues of the lawyers and participants in the inquest.
But there’s another river running through this terrible story — alcohol — and even in these early days of a proceeding expected to last six months, it’s evident it causes discomfort.
All seven young people, the oldest of whom was 21- year- old Paul Panacheese, had been drinking before they died.
In four of the five drownings, forensic pathologist Dr. Toby Rose said Tuesday that alcohol intoxication was a contributing cause of death.
In the fifth, that of Jordan, who was missing for three months, his body was sufficiently decomposed by the time it was found that the natural processes of decay could have caused the blood alcohol levels to rise.
( The ethanol released by a decomposing body can raise a blood- alcohol reading by as much as 50 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood, forensic toxicologist Dr. Karen Woodall, who testified beside Rose as part of an expert tag team, told the jurors.)
As a result, Rose said, and because of the relatively low levels of alcohol in Jordan’s blood ( his levels were 158 milligrams of alcohol, or almost twice the legal limit in Ontario for driving), she merely found he drowned.
The jurors have been told the boys were out with friends when they died. They usually convinced an adult to buy them liquor, and then drank near the rivers.
The blood- alcohol levels of the other four who drowned, and whose bodies were not decomposed, ranged from 228 to 285.
The other two young people, Panacheese and 18- year- old Robyn Harper, didn’t drown, but both also had been drinking before they died.
Panacheese collapsed at home — his mother had moved here so he could live with her — after returning from drinking with friends. His death, Rose said, remains unexplained, but she suspects he may have had an underlying heart condition.
“There are some heart diseases that don’t show up” at autopsy, she said, yet interfere fatally with the heart’s working. She said she recommended his siblings, parents and children be tested to make sure they don’t suffer from the same condition and said that as far as she knows, “this was done.”
Harper died of acute alcohol toxicity, period.
Her blood- alcohol level was in what toxicologists call the lethal zone — 339 milligrams, more than four times the legal driving limit.
The jurors were told she had moved from her remote reserve just two days before her death to attend high school. She was seen, so intoxicated she was staggering, on bus station video that night, and about half an hour later, a van from the Northern Nishwabe Education Council picked her up and returned her to her boarding home. She was placed, passed out, in a hallway of the home, undiscovered there until the next morning.
Asked if the teen could have been saved had she been taken to hospital eight hours earlier, Rose said, “It may well have made a difference,” though if she was unconscious, she may have needed a temporary breathing tube.
Harper hailed from the Keewaywin First Nation, a community of about 425 people north of Thunder Bay.
Accessible only by air and a winter ice road, Keewaywin is a dry community and appears to take its alcohol- free status seriously; the band website warns that all arrivals, however they get there, undergo a luggage search.
Kyle Morrisseau, who died in October of 2009, was also from Keewaywin.
He first came to the big city with his little brother, Josh Kakegamic ( they are full brothers, despite the last names), in 2008.
They took the four- hour flight together, two teens on a big adventure.
Josh, who is attending the inquest with his aunt, said they stayed with their father at first, but “he was constantly drinking, as well.” It made things difficult for them.
He’s an articulate, soft- spoken young man of 21 now ( Kyle would be 23), and he made the comment without rebuke.
He was supposed to return with Kyle in September of 2009, he said, but they got into a bit of a scrap, and he didn’t end up going. Instead, Kyle came by himself, and this time, lived at a boarding home.
The jurors were told that on Oct. 26 that year, Kyle met some friends at the Intercity Mall here and then headed to an outdoor area to drink.
On Nov. 10, his body was spotted in the McIntyre River.
Josh said he “was a talented kid who liked to paint” and was a good hunter. ( Both are grandsons of the famous aboriginal artist Norval Morrisseau.)
Josh lives on the reserve, preferring it to Thunder Bay.
“I don’t actually feel too comfortable being here,” he said. It’s not that it’s racist, he said, because even other native people “give you a look. … It’s obviously a big city for me.”
As lawyers for the various parties with standing cross- examined Rose and Woodall, it was clear they’re wrestling with the alcohol issue: One suggested the boys may have died of hypothermia, while two hinted that perhaps the boys had been pushed or rolled into the water.
Rose replied that pathological evidence “doesn’t distinguish between suicide, homicide and accidental drowning.”
She agreed, however, that alcohol would have rendered the already vulnerable even more so.