‘They took my son away,’ and now he’s dead
Mother of six-year-old boy testifies about his death while in foster care
REGINA Lee Bonneau liked to laugh and play. The shy six-year-old especially enjoyed flying his remotecontrolled airplane, going to the park, playing computer games and watching cartoons.
Lee was a “beautiful baby boy,” his mother told a coroner’s inquest investigating why the boy died while playing on a reserve. How he died is already clear: a 10-year-old boy with behavioural issues struck him with a blunt object, likely “something of opportunity,” the RCMP said.
Because the boy was under 12, he could not be charged under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Saskatchewan’s child advocate, Bob Pringle, determined that the boy probably shouldn’t have been in the community unsupervised.
Lee was visiting the Kahkewistahaw First Nation east of Regina on the day he crossed the boy’s path in August 2013. He was there with his foster mother, who was attending a bingo game. Social Services had apprehended him and put him in foster care just 2 1/2 months before.
His mother, Stacey Merk, testified on Monday, the first day of the inquest, that she has suffered from depression since she was a teen.
On June 6, 2013 she was feeling overwhelmed and was late taking her medication. She told a social worker who was visiting her home that she felt suicidal. “I don’t know why I said what I did.”
She said it set things in motion and “then they took my son away from me.” Merk said child protection workers refused to place him with Lee’s father, David, from whom she was separated. David Bonneau testified that he was devastated to lose his family.
He denied there was any domestic violence, the concern raised in documents prepared by child protection workers. “That’s the word they like to put down here to make them look good.”
He refused to sign the document to place Lee in foster care. He last saw his son alive during a visit at the start of August.
“He was all happy and giggling and playing with toys,” he said. “We loved him dearly.”
Lee had been placed in his second foster care home — a farm — near Kahkewistahaw, on Aug. 1 and all indications showed he was settling in — he enjoyed riding farm equipment with his foster father.
On the evening of Aug. 21, he accompanied his foster mother to the First Nation’s recreation centre, where there was bingo. Lee went off to buy a snack and when he did not return, she raised the alarm.
At one point, Lee was seen outside the centre playing with some dogs. It’s believed he crossed paths outside with boy — named in Pringle’s report as “Derek” although his real name cannot be released.
Lee was found critically injured. He died the next day in hospital.
Derek was already known to social services and was clearly on a violent and dangerous path, according to Pringle’s report, Two Tragedies: Holding Systems Accountable, released last year.
Derek had fetal alcohol syndrome, his school had raised several concerns with the agency responsible for him — Yorkton Tribal Council Child and Family Services — and at one point the school pleaded “for help for Derek.”
The RCMP was also involved. When he was eight, RCMP suspected that Derek was involved in a burglary where a pregnant dog was killed, along with her pups.
Pringle in his report said he found “significant gaps and shortfalls” in the child welfare services that put both boys in vulnerable situations.
He added, “This investigation found (Yorkton Tribal Council Child and Family Services) failed to act when Derek required protection and failed to provide services to address his complex needs.”
Pringle later told the CBC, “It was a train wreck that we could see coming.”
“The lives of these boys intersected in a tragic way,” reads the final page of the report, “and we have much to learn from their experiences.”
The inquest is to hear from 32 witnesses over two weeks. The role of a coroner’s jury is not to assess blame. Rather, the six jurors is to determine the who, when, where and how of Lee’s death.
The lives of these boys intersected in a tragic way and we have much to learn from their experiences.