THUNDER BAY -- Cries echoed through the Ontario Government Building Wednesday as friends and family of Lena Anderson huddled together for support.
The inquest into death of Lena Anderson, 23, who died on Feb. 1, 2013 following a transfer from a police vehicle after an incident began with an emotional testimony from Mary Ann Shewaybick, Anderson’s mother.
After wiping away tears Shewaybick took to the witness stand, speaking from her heart, describing her daughter as a “caring and loving” mother who had a lot of friends and enjoyed playing sports.
“I still grieve for her,” Shewaybick said to the five jurors.
Testifying feels like “opening a wound that I wanted to close,” she said. “I am hurt inside ... I wanted to take care of my daughter.”
Shewaybick told jurors she was worried for her daughter because two of her cousins died by suicide a few months before her death, and those suicides had been haunting her.
Anderson said she was “seeing visions of them calling to her.”
The lack of counselling raised concerns for Shewaybick knowing her daughter's mental health would suffer without help.
In Counsel to the Coroner’s opening statements to the jury, he said a child welfare worker went to Anderson’s home along with First Nations security officers, and a Nishnawbe Ask Police officer after community leaders became concerned about a “get together” at her home where her three-year-old daughter was present.
When the child welfare worker took Anderson’s daughter, Anderson ran out of the house accidently pushing the security officer in a last-ditch effort to reach her daughter, leaving the NAPS officer on duty no other choice than to take the mother into custody.
