There is nothing that authorities could have done differently to prevent the 2018 Edmonton stabbing deaths of a baby girl and her three-year-old sister by the man who thought he was father to both, concludes a recently released fatality inquiry report.
The man, 31 at the time, was sentenced in February of 2021 to life in prison with no chance of parole for 17 years after admitting to killing the three-year-old girl and his seven-month-old daughter at an Edmonton apartment in December 2018. He pleaded guilty in Edmonton court to two counts of second-degree murder, aggravated assault and breach of probation. He was not named to protect the identities of the girls.
At the time of their deaths, both girls were subjects of supervision orders made under the Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act of Alberta.
The fatality inquiry report from Justice R.W. Brandt follows the fatality inquiry held Nov. 27, 2023.
“His behaviour was unforeseeable. (The killer) carried out this unspeakable crime. He was solely responsible for it,” concluded Brandt in his December report.
“In light of the foregoing, I made no recommendations with respect to how similar deaths might be prevented in the future.”
The girls’ mother, a 30-year-old Indigenous woman, in the two years leading up to the killings, struggled with poverty, homelessness and addiction to hard drugs, said Brandt’s report.
DNA testing after the murders showed that the killer was not the biological father of the eldest child though he believed he was. He is a member of Alexander First Nation, northwest of Edmonton, the “product of a chaotic home characterized by violence and substance abuse,” according to the report.
“As a child he had suffered severe poverty and food insecurity. He was both the victim of every kind of violence and witness to the same. Though not formally diagnosed, it is quite likely that he suffered from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder,” said Brandt in the report.
During 2017 and 2018, the man was suffering from a severe addiction to hard drugs including crystal methamphetamine, with much of his criminal record accrued during that time. He and the girls’ mother were in an occasionally abusive domestic relationship that had continued on an on-and-off basis for several years, the report said.
The mother had a history with Children and Family Services, first coming to the attention of agency representatives in the summer of 2017. At that time, concerns were with respect to substance abuse by the couple and the associated potential neglect of the older daughter.
From that time on, the mother received regular family support services, most provided by the Wapski Mahikan Society, an Indigenous agency located on the Alexander First Nation, said the report. Children and Family Services went to great lengths to keep the mother and her daughters together. In February of 2018, case workers applied for and received a supervision order with respect to the oldest girl. Shortly after she was born, a supervision order was obtained for the baby as well.
With help from the Wapski Mahikan Society, on September 3, 2018, the mother graduated from a residential treatment program. Thereafter, Wapski Mahikan Society was in almost daily contact with the mother. They agency helped place the mom and children in the Edmonton apartment on November 1, 2018.
“The Wapski Mahikan Society were helpful, proactive and vigilant with respect to (her) substance abuse issues and her relationship with (her boyfriend). Social workers turned their minds to whether (the man) presented any form of danger to the girls. They reasonably concluded that there was no evidence of such a danger. The evidence clearly showed that Child and Family Services agencies provided appropriate supports to the family. Their decision to leave the girls with (the mother) was the correct and reasonable one,” said Brandt in his report.
Release from custody
But on Nov. 30, 2018, the mother’s boyfriend was released from custody at the Fort Saskatchewan Correctional Centre. No one from Children and Family Services was notified.
“Almost immediately upon his release from custody, (he) proceeded to the apartment unit (the mother) and the girls were occupying. On the evidence presented it is likely that (the couple) had planned for this to happen and that (she) was expecting (him) to arrive when he did. After his arrival, (the couple) together commenced using illegal drugs including methamphetamine,” said the report.
On the morning of December 5, 2018, the mother had an appointment for a parenting assessment through Children and Family Services. She left the girls in the care of the boyfriend, with her support worker arriving at the home around 12:30 p.m. in order to drive her to the appointment. The worker did not enter the apartment.
“The support worker assumed (the mother’s) sister was caring for the girls. To the support worker, (the mother) appeared pale and tired, but in good spirits. (She) said nothing about (the boyfriend) being present in the home,” said the report, adding the worker retrieved the mother from the assessment around 4 p.m.
At some point that afternoon, the girls were fatally stabbed.
“The stabbings were extensive and repeated and as gruesome as can be imagined. Nothing would be gained from describing those horrible injuries in more detail here,” Brandt said in his report.
The killer placed the bodies in garbage bags, hiding them inside a bedroom closet, under various household items. When the mother arrived home after 5 p.m., she found her boyfriend bloodied and her children missing. She demanded answers before he turned on her, beating her with a metal bar before she was able to flee the apartment.
He chased her down when she fell in the snow but she was able to kick him before he dropped the bar and ran away, yelling, “you win, you win,” said the report.
The woman was transported to University hospital, suffering multiple lacerations. A team of Edmonton city police officers found the girls’ bodies just before midnight.
The killer was arrested around 8:30 p.m. in a garage not far from the apartment. He was “naked and highly intoxicated by alcohol or drugs or some combination thereof. Later investigations found that in his blood, (he) had a therapeutic level of codeine and toxic, but not fatal, levels of methamphetamine.”
Motive unknown
“The Public Fatality Inquiry was provided with no evidence as to (the killer’s) motives for committing this horrific crime,” said Brandt in the report, stressing that the “diligence and compassion of these family support workers” in the case was obvious.
“There are cases where matters fall through the cracks, where tragedies take place because issues escape the notice of social service agencies. This is not one of those cases,” he said.
And asking corrections officials to notify Children and Family Services about the release of prisoners with histories of domestic violence presents “serious issues,” added Brandt.
“First, Corrections was then, as it is now, in possession of rather limited information when they release prisoners who have completed their sentences. Corrections administered sentences according to what the sentencing documents said. Those documents, such as Warrants of Committal, did not distinguish between which offences were domestic in nature and which ones were not,” he stressed.
“If such domestic violence prisoners could have been reliably identified, there would have been the further task of determining which ones had involvement with Child and Family Services organizations. Given privacy provisions properly in effect, making this determination would have been impossible from the point of view of Corrections.”
Additionally in this case, if corrections had alerted Children and Family Services of this prisoner release, there was still nothing to cause the agency any alarm with respect to the danger the man presented to the children.
“There had never been any allegations that (he) had harmed or was a danger to children. A release alert, even if it could have been sorted from other irrelevant alerts, would not have caused any reasonable personnel from Corrections or a Child and Family Services organization to do anything different in this case,” Brandt concludes in the report.
“I find that prisoner release alerts passed from Corrections to Child and Family Services organizations in cases such as this would be impracticable and would not have any positive result.”
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