This article contains graphic content that can be triggering to some readers.
After re-examining the case due to new evidence, Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has again found no police criminality in the suicide of a 21-year old woman in Thunder Bay.
The following timeline was constructed using information from the the SIU Director’s Report on the case.
On Dec. 30, 2023, a 911 call was made requesting police assistance to remove a woman from a residence. According to the SIU, there was “some information that the complainant might have been making a mess or causing damage to a room.”
At 3:08 am, Thunder Bay Police cancelled the call following a second report from the residence. The SIU says the caller had indicated the woman had left, the situation had calmed down, and police assistance was no longer required.
The same caller contacted 911 again at 10:37 am, reporting that the woman had hanged herself in his closet.
The initial SIU report in July 2025 found no criminal wrongdoing in the decision to cancel the call. However, the Forensic Data Recovery Unit initially concluded the woman’s last cell phone activity was at 2:42 am. A subsequent review determined her phone was actually in use until 5:17 am.
This changes the initial conclusion that there was a “distinct possibility” that the woman was already deceased when the police response was cancelled at 3:08 am.
Even with that considered, the SIU still found there was no reason for the officer to suggest the woman was a threat to herself, and ultimately determined there wasn’t enough of a legal connection between the woman’s death and the officer’s conduct.
“Whether the Complainant would have been removed from the home and, presumably, not died in the manner she did had the officer not cancelled the call and police officers responded to the scene is arguable,” SIU Director Joseph Martino wrote.
“Assuming for purposes of these reasons that she would not have died, that is not in itself sufficient to establish that the officer’s conduct was a legal cause of the Complainant’s death.”
The case is now closed.
