Tatyanna’s ‘Whole Case Was Built on Assumptions’

The mother of a young Indigenous woman who was found dead on a boat in a Richmond marina in 2022 says she’s lost faith with the police and B.C.’s coroner service following an inquest that raised troubling questions about how missing persons reports and deaths are investigated.

“Her whole case was built on assumptions,” Natasha Harrison said during a press conference held Monday. “I've lost complete faith in the way the systems run. I've lost complete faith in the police. I've lost complete faith in the coroner.”

And while Harrison and advocates thanked the coroner’s inquest jury for their work, they said the jury’s recommendations — which mostly focused on how police handle missing persons investigations — did not include any recommendations that focused on how police and coroners investigate deaths.

“We are therefore calling on the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General to direct a review into the missteps and failures by all agencies involved in the death investigation about what happened to Tatyanna Harrison,” said Sue Brown, the lawyer who represented Natasha at the inquest.

“And to renew investigative efforts to bring answers to her family and restore public trust in law enforcement and our investigative institutions.”

At the press conference, Brown read through a long list of details showing how three police forces and the BC Coroners Service failed to investigate the missing person report and the death of Tatyanna Harrison, who was just 20 when she went missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. While her body was found on May 1, 2022, it took until August 2022 to identify her.

“She was found on a derelict, dry-docked yacht in Richmond without shoes and naked from the waist down,” Brown said.

“We learned that the investigation into her death by Richmond RCMP stopped short on the basis of assumptions rooted in what we believe were discriminatory stereotypes of young women who are marginalized, live in poverty, are drug users and who may be connected to the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver — a population of girls and women who have fallen through the cracks of most of our systems.”

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.”

While toxicology testing found that there was a low level of fentanyl found in Tatyanna’s body — a level that would normally be too low to cause a fatal overdose — the investigating coroner “continued to tell the RCMP her death was likely due to an overdose for another three months.”

The pathologist who conducted an autopsy, Dr. Eric Bol, later concluded that Tatyanna had died not from a fentanyl overdose, but from sepsis, a blood infection. However, Dr. Matthew Orde, an independent pathologist that Natasha Harrison hired to review the case, testified at the inquest, saying he didn’t agree that sepsis had caused Tatyanna’s death.

The inquest jury found that Tatyanna’s cause of death is undetermined — the same cause of death that was suggested by Orde after he reviewed the case.

The inquest also heard how injuries on Tatyanna’s hips and pubic area were dismissed by police and by Bol. While Bol checked for injuries caused by a sexual assault during the autopsy and didn’t find any, he did not do a sexual assault examination that would have included collecting swabs.

Orde testified that the bruises on Tatyanna’s hips and pubic area would have concerned him, and would have led him to complete the full sexual assault examination.

After Natasha asked for the examination to be completed multiple times, the sexual assault test was done six months after Tatyanna’s body had been found. The inquest heard that the samples taken have still not yet been processed, because police have not seen any indication that a crime may have taken place.

During the inquest, Natasha also received the shocking news that the investigating coroner, Cynthia Hogan, had released Tatyanna’s body to the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. She learned that Tatyanna’s body had been buried, without her knowledge or consent, in August 2023. At first, Hogan said she did not know where Tatyanna was buried. It was only after Brown repeatedly questioned Hogan on the stand that Hogan agreed to look up the location of the burial.

“I would like my daughter's case properly investigated by someone who wants to do it, somebody who cares. I want that sexual assault kit tested — that could have closed doors early on. Just test the sexual assault kit,” Natasha said.

“Tell us it didn't happen. That's it — you could have just opened and shut that. That what all I asked, was for proof that my daughter wasn't trafficked. I want proof that my daughter wasn't trafficked. I want proof that she wasn't murdered. That's it. That's all I've asked for.”

The Tyee has reached out to the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General and will update this story if we receive comment.