'Flawed from the very beginning': Retired B.C. coroner blasts handling of 2016 death investigation

A retiree who spent years investigating deaths for the BC Coroner's Service has sent the agency a scathing letter over its handling of the suspicious death of a woman whose body was recovered from Okanagan Lake in 2016.

RCMP recovered Arlene Westervelt's body in June, one day after her husband Bert Westervelt reported that she had drowned after their canoe tipped on a day trip.

Police initially called the death a tragic accident but Arlene's sister Debbie Hennig said she suspected there was more to the story right from the start.

"The very people that I thought were going to help me have failed me," Hennig said in an interview with CTV News.

Within days of the body being discovered, BCCS released it without conducting an autopsy.

"Any kind of water-related drowning fatal should be autopsied. There should be no question," said Maureen Wint, who retired from the BCCS in 2004.

Wednesday, Wint sent her letter to Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe and cc'd Premier David Eby and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth.

"The original investigation by the BCCS was flawed from the very beginning," Wint wrote before calling for an inquest into Arlene's death.

Police did eventually launch a homicide investigation into the death and in April 2019 Bert was charged with second-degree murder.

Just 15 months later, citing new evidence that reduced the likelihood of a conviction, the Crown stayed the charge.

Bert has always maintained his innocence.

BCCS did eventually conduct an autopsy, but not before Arlene Westervelt's body had already been embalmed, possibly compromising some of the evidence.

“The anatomical findings at autopsy could not confirm or rule out death by drowning," the coroner's report concluded.

"I therefor classify the manner of death as undetermined and make no recommendations.”

'NO ACCOUNTABILITY, NO CLOSURE'

Wint believes an inquest is the only way to get all the facts in the case into the public record so Arlene's family can fully understand the circumstances surrounding her death.

"At least in an inquest, people would be in a situation to testify and tell the truth and maybe they could get some really good things out of that," she said.

In April, the BCCS re-opened the investigation into Arlene Westervelt's death, but without a full inquest or a separate investigation by an outside forensic pathologist, Hennig is not confident justice will be done.

"There is no accountability. There's no transparency. There's no answers. There's no closure," she said.

Hennig said the lack of answers about what actually happened to her sister makes the holidays especially hard every year.

"You know this is the seventh Christmas that I've put up my Christmas tree without Arlene," she sobbed.

Citing the ongoing investigation, the BC Coroner's Service declined to comment for this story.