Public Safety Minister Won’t Comment on Tatyanna Harrison Inquest

The lawyer who represented Tatyanna Harrison’s family says there’s no reason for Public Safety Minister Nina Krieger to wait to act on the disturbing revelations that were brought to light during a recent coroner’s inquest.

Several weeks after the inquest ended July 10, The Tyee reached out to the Ministry of Public Safety with a request to interview Krieger.

But her staff continue to say she won’t comment on calls for a review of B.C.’s death investigation system or a request for a renewed investigation of Harrison’s case until she receives a full report on the inquest from the BC Coroners Service. The Ministry of Social Development, which was involved in burying Harrison’s remains without the knowledge or consent of her mother, Natasha Harrison, also says staff won’t comment until it receives the report.

The BC Coroners Service told The Tyee that staff could not “provide a timeline for the final verdict with coroner comments.”

Sue Brown, the lawyer who represented Natasha Harrison at the inquest, said the delayed response is hard to understand.

“We expected a swift response from the minister, and I think the information that we learned at the inquest merits a swift and decisive response by all the ministries whose actions and processes were implicated in the failures that came to light during the inquest,” Brown said.

“In my view, I don't see why there's a need to wait for a report. Everything came out in the public record at the inquest, and I would have expected that they would have been kept apprised throughout.”

Brown said the problems brought to light during the inquest and the government’s reluctance to respond are especially troubling given B.C.’s past history with missing and murdered Indigenous women, including the serial killer Robert Pickton. Police inaction related to victims of Pickton previously led to B.C.’s Missing Women Commission of Inquiry and dozens of recommendations that were supposedly put into practice following the end of the inquiry in 2010.

But Tatyanna Harrison’s case, and that of two other Indigenous women and youth who went missing and were found dead in the same two-week period, has led advocates to question whether the inquiry truly led to change.

What the inquest heard

Tatyanna Harrison, a Métis and Cree woman who grew up on Vancouver Island and in Surrey, was 20 years old when she was reported missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood by her mother, Natasha, on May 3, 2022. Her body was found on a dry-docked yacht in a Richmond marina on May 1 but was not identified until Aug. 5. Despite physical evidence that pointed to a possible sexual assault, the case was deemed non-suspicious by the police and coroner.

The inquest heard that the BC Coroners Service continued to tell Natasha Harrison that her daughter had died from a drug overdose, even after toxicology testing found that fentanyl had been found in a dose that would normally be too low to cause death. The inquest also heard that Natasha had to repeatedly question investigating coroner Cynthia Hogan to learn that her daughter had been found wearing only a purple sweater, with no pants, shoes or underwear.

After Natasha repeatedly urged the coroners service to conduct a forensic sexual assault exam, swabs were taken months after the initial autopsy. But the inquest heard that Richmond RCMP have not processed those samples because they say they have no evidence a crime took place.

While BC Coroners Service pathologist Dr. Eric Bol later determined Tatyanna had died of sepsis, the inquest jury decided to change the cause of death to undetermined, after hearing a dissenting opinion from a pathologist who reviewed the case. That pathologist, Dr. Matthew Orde, also said he would have pushed to conduct a forensic sexual assault exam based on the bruises to Tatyanna’s pubic area and hips.

Orde, who previously worked as a pathologist in B.C., has been critical of the BC Coroners Service’s reliance on non-medically trained coroners, including for on-scene determinations of the likely cause of death. The Tyee has previously interviewed Orde for several other stories that highlighted troubling gaps in BC Coroners Service procedures.

In a shocking turn of events, investigating coroner Hogan revealed during her testimony that Tatyanna’s body had been released to the Ministry of Social Development and buried without Natasha’s knowledge or consent in 2023. It took repeated questioning from Brown to compel Hogan to reveal the location of the burial.

Brown said she’s “shocked” that the Ministry of Social Development hasn’t reached out to offer an apology to Tatyanna’s family or to “take steps to remedy what I think we can all agree is an egregious situation.”

At a press conference on July 13, Brown outlined a number of troubling gaps in the missing person and death investigation — gaps that involve the Surrey and Richmond RCMP, the Vancouver Police Department and the BC Coroners Service.

Brown said the inquest had revealed that when Tatyanna’s body was found on the boat, investigators’ assumptions that she was a drug user led them to “conclude very early on that her death was likely an overdose.” Drug paraphernalia found at the scene of the death was never tested.

“Based on these assumptions, investigators did not treat her death as suspicious from the start. Important questions were not answered,” Brown said.

“Evidence was not tested or collected. Witness statements were not verified. The injuries to her body, including abrasions to her pelvic area, knees and bruising to her face, have never been explained. The boat has since been destroyed, along with any evidence that it may have contained.”

Brown said the inquest heard that police had failed to follow their own policies, and the gaps in the police investigation were painfully obvious.

“They didn't follow up with witnesses. They didn't collect physical evidence. They based all of their investigative decisions on assumptions about who Tatyanna was at the scene of her death,” Brown said.

“Those are things that to me beg a review. The family deserves answers. The public deserves answers. Tatyanna deserves better than that. The failures have been so extensive top to bottom in this investigation. I can't fathom why they aren't putting their resources together right away to ensure that this doesn't happen again.”

Brown said the way the BC Coroners Service operates also needs to be thoroughly reviewed.

In British Columbia, coroners do not need to have medical training, something that is not the case in some other Canadian provinces. The inquest heard how Richmond RCMP relied on the “medical expertise” of the scene coroner to determine whether the death was suspicious. But that coroner did not testify at the inquest, and the BC Coroners Service has refused to tell The Tyee that coroner’s name or answer our questions about whether they had medical training.

Hogan, the investigating coroner who did testify, has previous experience as a police officer and mental health counsellor but does not have medical training.

During the inquest, Richmond RCMP Const. Josh Wilkinson testified that he was told by both Hogan and Dr. Jatinder Baidwan, the chief medical officer for the BC Coroners Service at the time, not to tell Tatyanna’s family about the low level of fentanyl found in her body. Baidwan became B.C.’s chief coroner in 2024; he did not testify at the inquest.

Brown said she wants to also see changes made to how the coroners service handles sexual assault examinations.

“I think it's the minister who needs to take some decisive steps here to look into how this happened, why this happened and — where appropriate — to hold the coroners service accountable,” Brown said.

“We need to know that the coroners service is doing it with integrity and that they are being driven by the science and the medical evidence and that they're adhering to best practices.”