A family’s search for justice
DELAYED POLICE INVESTIGATION RAISES CONCERNS
At 3:17 a.m. on Jan. 10, 2015, a woman partially obscured on security cameras but known to be Nadine Machiskinic entered an elevator at the Delta Regina Hotel. Two men got in at the same time.
By 4: 11 a. m., Machiskinic was found unconscious in the hotel’s basement laundry room.
At some point in those 54 minutes she had fallen 10 floors down a laundry chute and would be dead within three hours.
But three years on, the family still has no answer to the mystery of her death.
Police say the case has no suspected criminal element — but Machiskinic’s family fear foul play. A coroner determined the death was accidental — but a jury at a later inquest ruled it “undetermined.”
“It’s a very poignant example of how things are different for a First Nations woman who died in such circumstances than they would be for anyone else,” says Tony Merchant, the Regina lawyer representing t he f amily in a l awsuit against the hotel.
“The whole system is built against those who are wronged. We have these institutions that we pretend are effective, but they really aren’t.”
When staff at the Delta found Machiskinic sprawled on the laundry room floor, t hey presumed she had walked into the basement intoxicated and passed out.
In fact, Machiskinic had plummeted — probably feet first — down a 30- metre laundry chute. The 29- yearold mother of four later died of head, neck and trunk injuries.
How she came to be in the chute — accessible only through a hatch 53 centimetres wide and which lay behind an unlocked service door — is a mystery made more difficult to unravel by a 60-hour delay in launching a police investigation and a long list of errors that followed.
On the night she died, Machiskinic had high levels of drugs and alcohol in her system.
At 3:45 a.m. on that night, a fire alarm sounded on the hotel’s 10th floor. Machis- kinic is suspected to have pulled it. A fire crew arrived but left after 10 minutes because there didn’t seem to an emergency.
What followed next was a series of missteps and blunders.
Regina police headquarters is just a five- minute walk from the Delta, but police were never called. They didn’t know something was amiss until Jan. 12 — 60 hours later.
It was only decided to involve police when Machiskinic’s body was examined at a morgue and her ribs were found to be broken.
The Delta Regina Hotel had no cameras in its halls or stairwells, and the lobby cameras gave only incomplete views. But there might have been footage of Ma- chiskinic from the attached Casino Regina — her Players Club Card had been activated just after 2 a. m. However, when police got around to seeking i t, the casino tapes had been wiped clean because a 10- day hold had passed.
Police only made a concerted effort to get a full Jan. 10 guest list from the hotel in January 2016 — a year after Machiskinic’s death. By then, up to half the names on the list had been wiped from a database as the hotel was under new ownership.
As for the two mystery men, the public never saw their faces until May 2016, when police released their images to the public. However, they have never been identified and the family ex- pressed concern that their images were removed from the police website after a short period.
Police said the two men “are not considered suspects in anything” and that the investigation is concluded. They have never suggested that it is anything other than coincidence that the men and Machiskinic, entered the elevator at the same time.
In his final report, Saskatchewan chief coroner Kent Stewart said “blunt f orce t rauma consistent with a fall” had killed Machiskinic, with drug toxicity a contributing factor. He deemed the death accidental.
Stewart presented his report in May 20, 2016, after bungling that included toxicology samples that were only sent to an RCMP lab for testing after a six-month delay. Regina police admitted the error was theirs.
There were also two autopsy reports with very different takes on Machiskinic’s ability to get into the laundry chute unassisted.
Machiskinic’s aunt Delores Stevenson says they were given the first one — the province later called it a “working document” — in April 2016. Stevenson says she is sure the family was never meant to see it.
In it, chief forensic pathologist Shaun Ladham said “t he l evels of t he drugs present would make it unlikely that she (Machiskinic) would have been able to climb into the laundry chute on her own.” Ladham advised that the death be listed as “undetermined.”
However, after Ladham’s recommendation, the province called in Alberta toxicologist Graham Jones. In a submission attached to a second set of documents later received by the family, Jones said that, given Machiskinic’s apparent drug and alcohol tolerance, climbing into the chute would not have been beyond her ability.
When Stewart’s final coroner’s report was released, it contained Ladham’s second autopsy report. By then his opinion had been swayed by Jones’ view, and his initial, contradictory opinion was discarded.
By June 2016, and with the Public Complaints Commission involved, Saskatchewan attorney general and justice minister Gord Wyant called a full inquest.
By the time the inquest went ahead in March 2017, Stewart had retired as chief coroner. A six- person jury decided the death should be listed as “undetermined.”
The family’s counsel at the hearings, Noah Evanchuk, told reporters that “this was a botched investigation from the very beginning.”
But the i nquest didn’t provide solid answers for the family. They believe Machiskinic would never have ended up in a laundry chute of her own free will, and that she might have been trying to rouse people on the 10th floor to help her escape a dangerous situation.
“The past three years have been extremely challenging for our family,” said Stevenson when asked about the anniversary of Machiskinic’s death.
She asked people to “keep Nadine and our struggle for justice in their thoughts.”
A VERY POIGNANT EXAMPLE OF HOW THINGS ARE DIFFERENT FOR A FIRST NATIONS WOMAN.