Autumn’s Death:

Autumn’s death was not undetermined as the Coroner claimed it was.

*The probable cause of death was as the pathologist indicated: the foster mother did not give her the medication to prevent her seizures and the probable cause of death was due to a low therapeutic dose of phenobarbital drug in her bloodstream and that being slept face-down’ she had a seizure and suffocated. This was a second child that had suffocated in this woman’s care. After all this she still was a foster mother and may still be.

Mid July, 2006 I called the registrar’s office to ask if the registrar (acting) would contact Justice Chicoine and ask him if he would consider the new evidence according to the appropriate Rule of the court in these matters. I indicated that I had new evidence to support the pleading of a wrongful death of Autumn Starr born on August 26th, 2005, died while in the care of Protection Services (Regina) on October 28th, 2005.

Later that same morning this registrar told me that he could not reach the justice and would try next week. I deemed that this was another stall tactic and did something highly irregular and telephoned him myself and low and behold he was able to be contacted. His directives to me were to take what I had prepared to the registrar and hand it to the registrar requesting him to forward it to him in Estevan, SK and he would decide if this should be allowed in.

The autopsy was not available when arguments were heard on March 07, 2006 so it was very reasonable request considering he was in the process of making a decision. When the registrar, Mr. Dauncey was back from holidays at the beginning of August, 2006 I was asked to provide to all 5 lawyers the extensive preparation of what I was led to believe that Justice Chicoine had already received for them to read. Of course this would be reasonable if Justice Chicoine was prepared to hear it BUT…..I learned mid August that the Registrar, Mr. Dauncey spoke with counsel (the lawyers) and this judge (without my being included), and decided that the evidence I had prepared would not be allowed in.

I should not have had me provide my materials to 5 lawyers when this judge never intended to read it or consider it in the first place. Feeling exasperated, because I felt entirely manipulated and ‘left out of the loop’ and duped, I went further and mailed my materials directly to Justice Chicoine.

This was intercepted and sent back to me with a terse warning in a letter from Mr. Watson, Q.C. and the registrar to stop this. Then in September I filed two motions to have the venue out of Regina and another motion to have the evidence heard. I was told by the court clerk that I could not file these motions and I asked to speak to Mr. Dauncey.

The clerk came back and said he’d gone for the day, which was a Friday afternoon around 3:30 p.m. I told her that she could give these motions to Mr. Dauncey upon his return and he could file them. I was told to take them with me and I refused to do that and indicated that I had a right to file these motions and left. Finally after some back and forth mailings Mr. Dauncey called me to say that Chief Justice Robert Laing had ordered these motions to be heard and a date was set for the first week of October 2006.

Since the two motions would be heard on a Monday, not the usual day for a hearing in Chambers to address motions I asked Mr. Dauncey if this was a special meeting. He said no it was not. Well another lie. It was a special meeting which was closed to the public and was audio-taped.

Before arguments, certain lawyers were making remarks between them and laughing to be intimidating. They knew how this would all play out now that they had a new judge. Their demeaning behavior was not just adversarial it was disrespectful. A few months after the March hearing, Autumn’s autopsy was provided to me by Destiny. The results showed a wrongful death, a pleading I added in my amended claim and I wanted this evidence in. Finally after some back and forth mailings Mr. Dauncey called me to say that Chief Justice Robert Laing had ordered these motions to be heard and a date was set for the first week of October 2006.

Since the two motions would be heard on a Monday, not the usual day for a hearing in chambers to address motions I asked Mr. Dauncey if this was a special meeting. He said no it was not. Well another lie. It was a special meeting which was closed to the public and was audio-taped.

Before arguments and after, certain lawyers were making remarks between them and laughing as I set my materials out on the table. Their demeaning behavior was not just adversarial it was disrespectful. At least they were enjoying themselves which was much the same in the appeal hearing. Justice Chicoine was on the bench and he said he had not read the autopsy nor did he intend on reading it-Wow!

 

To my knowledge a Coroner’s Inquest is to be conducted with any infant or child who dies while in the care of this ministry. If the Coroner (SK Government appointed) writes that the death is undetermined then they have created a ‘loop-hole’ for not going forward with one. In Autumn’s case the pathologist claims that the probable cause of death is due to a low therapeutic dose of Phenobarbital drug in her blood whereby she likely took a seizure face-down and suffocated. The drug she was to receive was to prevent seizures. She was to receive this drug once a day. The foster mother claims she ran out of the prescription and never got around to refilling it and of course she was at risk to have a seizure.

This foster mother told me that Autumn was the first baby she had in her care since the last baby died in her care a year earlier. I do not recall a Coroner’s Inquest here either. Are these babies expendable?

Is there nothing to learn by going over these autopsies and the ‘level of care’ that our ‘loved one’ should have received ‘in the care’ of this ministry.

Smoking in their environments, not giving them their life-sustaining medications and overcrowding a foster home with high-risk babies and children and paying them a pauper’s wage having disastrous results.

Foster homes should not be vulnerable environments for our most vulnerable!

The Leader Post article documents this at this link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/229925907/Leader-Post-Article-on-Autumn-s-Death secret_password=5lGyRhGQvQT6o6yHLPAy

When we picked Autumn up for our first and only visit the protection worker (a seasoned-experienced one) told me to sleep her on her stomach. I asked her why. She told me that the foster mother indicated that this is the only way she can get her to settle-to sleep. Being shocked by her directives and what the foster mother was doing I indicated that I would not be sleeping her face-down but on her back. I explained why that was, telling her that Autumn was a baby ‘at risk’ (being weaned off of her mother’s use of methadone and drugs).

I reminded her that it is well known now that Sudden Infant Death occurs in the first months of babies lives if they are slept on their ‘tummy’. This information was not well received and she exasperatedly said, “Arlene do what you want!” I was concerned about Autumn and knew that she was ‘at risk’ and now knowing that THAT THIS FOSTER MOTHER WAS SLEEPING HER ON HER TUMMY AND THAT A SEASONED PROTECTION WORKER WAS ADVOCATING THIS I was really concerned.

I was glad to see that the foster mother had left me a note to call her if I had any concerns. I called her of course and told her my concern for Autumn, asking her to please not sleep her on her tummy telling her why. She tried very unconvincingly to tell me it was safe to sleep her this way. So I told her that I used to teach pediatric nursing and stressed the importance of NOT positioning these vulnerable babies on their tummy.

That made no impact on her. Then she told me that Autumn was her first baby since a year ago when she had a boy die in her care who suffocated on his vomit.

Four days after we took her back to Protection Services she died in this woman’s care.

The Coroner concluded that the cause of Autumn’s death was ‘undetermined’. On the other hand the pathologist’s report states that the probable cause of death was due to a low therapeutic dose of phenobarbital in her bloodstream whereby she likely had a seizure and ‘face-down’, suffocated. The neuropathologist’s report states that she is three months old not two month’s old.

That is the first error. His next error was the brain weight he used was based on the fixed brain weight and not the fresh brain weight. There were other errors and discrepancies. So the autopsy findings in its’ entirety can not be relied on.

This was detailed in my preparation to have new evidence admitted into court to support the pleading of a wrongful death. Specific information from this autopsy report will be on Charlene’s website, where she and I will give Autumn a ‘voice’ through her autopsy and my critique of it.

So why was the therapeutic dose of the drug she needed to prevent seizures too low? It was because the foster mother told the investigator that she ran out of it and had not had it refilled.

Monday, October 24, 2005 my husband and Charlene returned Autumn to Social Services and the medicine accompanied her. I gave her the medicine and there was medicine left in the bottle.

Destiny asked for Social Services to pay for a plot near my parents and so they bought it, which she/we appreciated, but painfully sorry that it had to be purchased at all.

She should not have died if properly taken care of! She’s pointing her finger at all of us, telling us to “do better and do more to take care of us”. We’re too important to keep burying us.

LILY ADELE

This photo was taken in our office downtown when Destiny’s friend who had interim legal custody of her brought her for a visit-our one and only visit. Our family knew nothing about Destiny expecting again.

Late January 2007, Charlene and I were in the Cornwall Center Mall and Destiny came over to us to tell us that she had another baby girl and what she weighed and so on. She informed us that she’d be having no more babies because she made sure of that.

* Further, she told us that this ministry had told her to find her own caregiver and said it could be your mom but that they were having nothing to do with providing protection for her because they DID NOT WANT ANYMORE TROUBLE WITH HER MOTHER (me).

Lily was born January 13 and died March 28, 2007. * 20.5 months later Lily was buried next to her sister Autumn.  Again another death that should never have occurred.

To date their deaths have not had a Coroner’s Inquest and nothing was gained by the public for their precious lives. * So does it make any sense to ask my daughter to find her own caregiver for her baby? It makes about as much sense as the rest of their actions. This ministry was more interested in protecting themselves than Lily as was the justice system in protecting them. Tragic day for the vulnerable and these days continue.

These decisions defy ‘common-sense’ and protection workers have degrees in social science. Protection workers who administer protection services in this manner should have had a mandatory course in ‘Common-sense 101’.

If they do not pass they should receive ‘no re-writes’ but their ‘walking papers’. So this ministry told her how to go to Legal Aid and set-up a custody agreement (interim) between her daughter and this woman, her friend whom she found to take care of her baby. This woman was Destiny’s friend, well known to protection services who had her own children taken from her because they needed protection.

Yet they stood-by ‘with their hands-in-their pockets’ while Destiny placed her baby with this woman, just because they did not want any problem with their mother again (referring to my adding a pleading of a wrongful death to lawsuit QBG. 1306.

Destiny said she did not tell me about expecting another baby or approach me to take her because I already had four of her children and she recalled the letter I had sent her after Lyle the last baby was born, telling her that he’d be the last baby we’d take in. Little did she know that we’d decided that if Destiny was to have any other babies we’d take them in because we knew they would need protection and God would make a way for us to cope.

TO RECAP:

1. 20.5 months after Autumn’s death her infant sister Lily died in the care of Destiny’s friend’s care.
2. This woman had her own children taken into care because she could not protect them. She was known to Protection Services and she never passed a Home Assessment to be a foster home. They stood by and allowed Lily to go into her care relinquishing their duties to Destiny to find her own Caregiver for her baby because she was not fit to parent.
3. I knew nothing of her pregnancy or these arrangements.
4. Their actions are absurd, incompetent and professional breaches of our trust in them to dutifully protect our (grand)children.
5. Lily was under their watch whereby they were involved in [not] protecting her from the time she was born.
6. We never knew that Lily was even on her way or born until after plans for her were made and this woman was given custody (interim).
7. Protection Services knew she was ‘at risk’ and actually put her at risk in the decisions they made concerning her.
8. In Lily’s autopsy report it is noted that alcohol was found in her bloodstream.
9. There was feces (poop) all over her floor, thought to be animal feces.
10. Was this a dosage of alcohol in her bloodstream enough to compromise her breathing and kill her? -if so then we are talking MURDER. I intend to do my own inquiry and conclude if it was –
11. Their actions as ‘continuous’ (injury) from the adoption to Destiny’s children to their orchestrating two unlawful evictions because their hatefulness, made my life so stressful that at times it was like ‘a living hell’.
12. Certainly it was not my precious grandchildren, nor the Aboriginal recipients of the programs I began, or even the First Nations/Aboriginal Directors of the organization The Anchorage that made my life hell-but this ministry ONLY!  * PROTECTION SERVICES (Regina, SK) was a disaster for all of my grandchildren, including Autumn and Lily.

These babies need consistent intensive care. An Alberta judge makes a valuable insight concerning this. See link: https://www.scribd.com/doc/248936244/Alberta-Judge-Urges-Better-Understanding-of-Stress-on-Foster-Babies-SUDDEN-DEATHS

Autumn and Lily are with the Lord. Their precious lives will never be forgotten. SADLY we as a family don’t get to love these beautiful babies and share them with others. * As mentioned in my reply to THE BRIBE we STILL want their lives to be validated.

In the early morning of October 24th, 2005, after giving Autumn Starr a bottle, I rocked her and sang to her Jesus Loves You ‘this we know’. This was our one and only visit with her and 4 days later she died in foster care. When we had our one and only visit with Lily Adele I sang her Jesus Loves You ‘this we know’. Somehow I knew she’d see Jesus soon too.

I prayed over both of these precious babies and asked Jesus ‘to take care of them’ and He did in His way – He took them home with Him-He knew best. I came across this YouTube video of children singing: “Jesus Loves Me’ and it is so sweet. I have added it as a link for all to enjoy and in remembrance of all the babies and children who have died like Autumn and Lily, in faith, knowing they are with Jesus: