The family of a Regina woman found dead at the bottom of a hotel laundry chute is questioning how she fit through the chute door.
An inquest into the death of Nadine Machiskinic started Monday with police photos and testimony describing the chute opening as 53 centimetres wide.
READ MORE: Inquest into death of woman who fell down Regina hotel laundry chute scheduled for March
Machiskinic was found at the bottom of the chute in January 2015.
An autopsy found she died of blunt force trauma after falling 10 storeys and the death was ruled accidental, with the coroner noting that the mother of four had drugs in her system.
Machiskinic’s aunt, Delores Stevenson, wants to know how her niece fell through such a small opening.
Stevenson says she hopes the inquest will give her family the answers they need.
“The dimensions of the laundry chute – I’m not an expert but that looked like a pretty small laundry chute to start with. I’m just wondering how somebody could fit in that small, little laundry chute, manoeuvre their way … how does somebody get into that little small space?” she said outside the inquest Monday.
“I hope that we’ll get some truth, I hope that we’ll get some answers.”
Machiskinic’s family has raised concerns that police were not taking her death seriously.
Const. Keith Malcolm told the inquest that police made an error when they delayed sending toxicology samples for testing for several months. Malcolm thought another officer in the forensics unit had sent the samples for testing and the other officer thought Malcolm had done it.
“Nobody’s proud of their mistakes and this is why toxicology wasn’t sent. It was human error,” he said.
Malcolm says police have since changed procedures to avoid such mistakes in the future.
“I suspected that from the beginning that toxicologies weren’t sent as quickly as they could have been which is why there was a delay and such frustration with getting the whole report that we needed time,” Stevenson said.
The jury heard a 911 call from Delta Hotel security about an unresponsive individual, later confirmed to be Machiskinic, with two pill bottles, and identification found beside her in the basement of the hotel.
Jury also heard a search of the 10th floor also found no evidence to support Machiskinic was present in room 1008, the only occupied room on that floor. She was also not a registered guest at the hotel.
The inquest is scheduled to last all week, with nine witnesses expected to take the stand.
With files from Christa Dao.
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