The Inquest into the Death of Tatyanna Harrison Starts This Week

[Editor’s note: This article contains descriptions of sexual assault and stories related to missing and deceased Indigenous women and youth. It may be triggering to some readers.]

A coroner’s inquest into the death of Tatyanna Harrison starts today, but two other families are still waiting for similar inquiries into the deaths of their loved ones.

The remains of Harrison, 13-year-old Noelle O’Soup and 24-year-old Chelsea Poorman were found in different locations over a six-month period in 2022. All three were Indigenous, had been reported missing by their families and had a connection to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The police do not consider the deaths of Poorman or Harrison to be suspicious.

Harrison, 20, was last seen in the Downtown Eastside on April 22, 2022. Her body was found in a boat in dry dock at a marina in Richmond two weeks later.

Poorman was last seen in downtown Vancouver on Sept. 6, 2020. Her body was found 18 months later in the backyard of an empty home in the upscale neighbourhood of Shaughnessy.

O’Soup was just 13 when they were reported missing from a Coquitlam foster care group home in 2021. O’Soup’s remains were found nearly one year later in the single-room occupancy hotel room of a man known to prey on vulnerable young women.

The families of the three women and youth have all criticized the police and coroner’s investigations into the deaths and have jointly called for coroner’s inquests for all three cases.

Following a press conference the three families held on May 5, 2025, B.C.’s chief coroner, Jatinder Baidwan, announced a coroner’s inquest would be held for Harrison. Baidwan said at the time that inquests were not yet planned for Poorman and O’Soup because the coroner investigations into those deaths were still open.

Natasha Harrison, Tatyanna’s mother, canvassed the streets of the Downtown Eastside in the weeks following her daughter’s disappearance, then sent police inquiries about whether the body of an unidentified woman could be Tatyanna; DNA testing showed it was.

Although Tatyanna’s body had been found naked from the waist down, a sexual assault test had not been completed. Natasha also pushed police to complete a rape kit test. During the press conference in May 2025, she told news media that test had yet to be processed.

Coroner Cynthia Hogan initially told Natasha that Tatyanna’s death was likely caused by a fentanyl overdose. But after an autopsy was performed, Natasha was told Tatyanna’s death had been caused by sepsis.

At the press conference in May 2025, Natasha Harrison and the advocacy group Justice for Girls told reporters that an independent pathologist, Dr. Matthew Orde, had reviewed the evidence and the autopsy report. Orde rejected the BC Coroners Service’s finding that sepsis was the cause of Tatyanna’s death. He said the cause of death should have been ruled undetermined.

In February, an Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner investigation found that Vancouver police had erred when they failed to designate Tatyanna Harrison’s disappearance as high risk.

Retired judge Brian Neal found that officers did take several investigative steps, including checking local hospitals. They also interviewed Natasha Harrison and youth workers who had interacted with Tatyanna.

Neal wrote that the officers — a male constable and a female sergeant who supervised his work — compiled a history for Tatyanna that showed she was a 20-year-old Indigenous woman who was homeless at the time she went missing. She had a history of using fentanyl, had mental health diagnoses of bipolar disorder and ADHD and had a past history of suicidal ideation.

The combination of factors should have led police to designate her disappearance as high risk, Neal wrote.

The inquest into Harrison’s death will start July 2. Coroner’s inquests are fact-finding, formal court proceedings that run anywhere from several days to two weeks, and seek to determine the facts of a death and recommend changes that could prevent similar deaths.