Jail suicide inmate left note to his wife

‘I know one day we will be reunited. I will be patient to wait for you’

A 55-year-old inmate found dead at the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre left a suicide note to his wife urging her to understand why he wanted “to look for a better world” and asking for her forgiveness.

“When I married you I was the happiest man in the world,” Renaud-Louis Grenier wrote. “I leave with that fond memory. Forgive me if I hurt you. Tell my children that I forgive them. Kiss them on my behalf and my grandchildren that are so cute. I know that one day we will be reunited. I will be patient to wait for you. That day, we will be happy for eternity. Goodbye my love. Your husband that loves you.”

The note, written in pencil and in French, is part of the evidence at an Ottawa inquest into Grenier’s death on Oct. 18, 2011 at the Innes Road facility.

The Cornwall grandfather was remanded in custody after being charged by Cornwall police with assault with a weapon. He had been at the detention centre awaiting a court appearance. It was his first time being incarcerated.

In a statement read at the inquest, a fellow prisoner said that “a very sad” Grenier had told him: “I have nothing left to do except get sick and die.”

Jail staff testifying Monday pointed to a chronic lack of radios that often leave guards unable to communicate with each other and a lack of privacy during prisoner intake that one nurse said militates against in- mates speaking openly about their mental illness.

The inquest jury is expected to make recommendations in an effort to improve what jail staff say is a rigorous anti-suicide policy.

In his processing, Grenier had answered a standard health questionnaire and said he had no intention of “self harming” and had no thoughts of suicide. According to his own answers and some basic medical checks, he was a relatively healthy prisoner and was not on a suicide watch.

A guard on routine patrol found Grenier with one end of a bed sheet around his neck and the other tied around a ladder leading to an upper cell bunk. Grenier had arrived at the jail with an order from a Cornwall court that he undergo a mental health assessment at the Royal mental health facility to determine, among other things, whether he was criminally responsible.

It isn’t clear whether that assessment was done during the two weeks he was incarcerated.

The inquest heard that Grenier was initially placed in maximum security but requested a move to the protective custody unit of the jail after being rejected by “max” security prisoners.

Steve Ashdown, now security manager at the jail, told the inquest that intake officers had placed Gre- nier in maximum security because of the seriousness of the charges.

But for unknown reasons, inmates didn’t like him.

“The inmates decided on their own they didn’t want him in the unit,” Ashdown told the five-person jury. “They can ask the new inmate to leave the unit and they can be violent about it or social about it. Fortunately in this case they were social about it. There was no violence.”

There are myriad reasons why new prisoners are rejected by inmates, added Ashdown — age difference or gang affiliation among them.

The Innes Road jail holds about 530 inmates, most of whom are waiting for trials or other court appearances and a minority serving minor sentences of a few months.

Between 20 and 100 prisoners also serve weekend sentences between Friday and Monday.

According to provincial Correctional Services figures, there have been two suicides and 47 suicide attempts at the Innes Road facility in the past decade.

There have been 39 suicides in Ontario jails in the past 10 years.

During that same period, provincial jails received between 70,00080,000 new prisoners a year.

The inquest continues Tuesday.