TORONTO – The adoptive mother of a teenager who strangled herself in her prison cell said Wednesday her daughter was an independent child who always seemed happy.
Testifying at the inquest into the death, Coralee Smith said Ashley showed few signs of problems growing up.
“You never saw that girl without a smile on her face,” Smith testified.
“Most of her life, she was smiling and happy.”
Coroner’s counsel Marg Creal asked what Ashley liked:
“Oh my goodness, what did Ashley like? Quiet time and doing her own thing. She loved her doll,” Smith answered, her hands twisting a piece of paper.
“Ashley was very independent.”
Smith, of Moncton, N.B., described how she and her husband of two years, Harold, adopted Ashley as a three-day-old in early 1988.
The relationship with Harold soon ended and Smith got involved with Herb Gorber, when Ashley was about 3 1/2 years old.
Ashley was a home body, who would call her mom early in the morning to come and get her if she spent the night with relatives, Smith said.
Beyond some report card comments that Ashley talked too much or could be disruptive in class, there were no issues at school until about Grade 8, Smith testified.
“I had no calls, no reports before that,” she said.
In Grade 9, however, Ashley was expelled for disruptive behaviour, setting off a family quest to find help.
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At one point, Ashley saw a psychiatrist.
“She opined Ashley was just a normal teenager,” Smith said.
“I’m too fat and I have acne,” was Ashley’s take on the session, her mom said.
“Coming out of that, I’m feeling rest assured that things aren’t so bad.”
Ashley would later go to a residential facility for an assessment that was supposed to last 34 days.
“She graduated early,” Smith said ruefully.
A mental-health report from that stay noted Ashley had concerns about her family background.
She wanted to know about her adoptive father, but Smith said she didn’t have much information to give her.
“He never even sent a birthday card or a Christmas card,” she said of her ex. “I can see how that would play on a little girl.”
Smith also said she had held off giving her daughter information on her biological parents on the grounds she was just too young.
The assessment ended after just 21 days because of her disruptive behaviour.
“She has a huge personality issue in emotional borderline tendencies,” a psychiatric report concluded.
Ashley was sent home with a prescription for the drug Zoloft. Smith said she didn’t like giving her daughter drugs.
She had never seen the worst of her behaviour, Smith said.
“At home, Ashley was a mom’s girl.”
Smith is the first witness who is not connected with the prison or medical systems.
At the start of her evidence, presiding coroner Dr. John Carlisle expressed “heartfelt and sincere condolences” for her daughter’s death.
Smith said she had watched the inquest for the first two weeks via webcast.
“The family took the computer away from me. They didn’t think I should be watching.”
Ashley Smith was 19 when she strangled herself in her cell at the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont., as guards, ordered not to intervene, watched.
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