‘Hard to regain my trust,’ says Tatyanna Harrison’s mother after inquest called

The mother of a young Indigenous woman found dead in B.C. three years ago says she’s grappling with mixed emotions now that a coroner’s inquest has been called in the case.

Tatyanna Harrison was found dead on a drydocked yacht in Richmond in May 2022. Her remains were actually found a day before she was reported missing, but it was four months before she was properly identified, and her family has since raised numerous concerns about how the case was handled.

After her mother, Natasha Harrison, and the families of another Indigenous woman and teen found dead in 2022 raised public questions about all three cases on Monday, the province’s chief coroner ordered the inquest into Tatyanna’s case. No inquests, however, have been called into the other two cases.

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“It’s such a weird emotion … I’ve been through them all, you know, but there’s been a few that I had never felt in my life with my daughter, and this was another one — I had never been so excited for such tragic news,” Natasha said.

“I can’t help but have my heart go out to Chelsea Poorman‘s family and Noelle O’Soup‘s family, like it doesn’t feel complete until an inquest is called for them, you know.”

Poorman was found in a vacant Shaughnessy mansion, while O’Soup was found in a Downtown Eastside apartment, after being overlooked by investigators who had visited the unit several times. Both families have raised serious concerns about how they died and how their investigations were handled.

Natasha and her supporters have raised many concerns about the case.

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Initially, officials said Tatyanna had died of a toxic dose of fentanyl, but months later, the coroner ruled she died of sepsis.

Shortly after her daughter was identified in August, Natasha spoke with the coroner — the first of a series of conversations she said left her with more questions than answers.

“I asked in detail many questions that have now proven to be appropriate questions that needed to be asked, and right then, I didn’t believe it was an overdose,” she said.

“And then when they overturned it to sepsis … I asked questions again, like if you’re going to say sepsis, how did you come to that? And that’s when I was like, this isn’t adding up.”

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The family commissioned an independent pathologist who disagreed with that conclusion, finding the cause of death should be ruled undetermined.

Natasha said she also had to fight to have a rape kit performed on her daughter’s body, despite the fact the 20-year-old was found partially clothed.

She said investigators offered “every excuse” as to why her daughter would be unclothed, “except the most reasonable,” adding she was given the impression the “whole investigation was based off of bias and prejudice.”

She also questions why there was no CCTV footage of her daughter entering the vessel, despite the boat yard having 24-hour security.

While she considers the inquest a victory, Natasha said it will be hard not to be skeptical going into it.

“I think it’s gonna be hard to regain my trust after the three years,” she said.

Under B.C. law, inquests are fact-finding exercises that cannot delegate blame but can make recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future.

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Natasha said that’s somewhat frustrating, given many of the recommendations she believes it will generate will simply echo the 231 Calls for Justice laid out by the 2019 National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. According to the Assembly of First Nations, just two of those calls for justice have been fully implemented, six years later.

“I hope they start implementing those calls to justice; like, there’s things that could have prevented my daughter from passing. There’s already been requests made, you know, recommendations made,” she said.

“We could have three women, two women and a young girl alive today if these recommendations had been implemented.”

She added that she’d like to see a more fulsome probe of how the investigation itself was handled, rather than simply the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s death.

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And she said it will be hard to feel peace until similar inquests are called into the deaths of Noelle O’Soup and Chelsea Poorman — whose families have both raised similar concerns.

Despite that, she said she won’t hesitate to attend the inquest.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure she gets the justice she deserves,” she said.

“In the hopes to bring awareness and get the justice for the other girls as well, because they deserve an inquest as much as Tatyanna.”

The coroner’s office says Poorman and O’Soup’s cases still remain open.

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