Vancouver police have now released the identities of two people who died in the fire at the Winters Hotel in April.
Mary Garlow, 68, and Dennis Guay, 53, were identified via DNA, and their next-of-kin have been notified, police said.
Garlow’s niece spoke to Global News in late April, saying she had unanswered questions about the tragedy.
Misty Fredricks said her aunt was a member of the Oneida Nation in the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, and a survivor of the Mohawk Institute Residential School.
She moved to British Columbia when she was 20, and lived the rest of her life in the city’s Downtown Eastide, Fredericks said.
“It’s important that we honour Mary Ann’s life and put a face and a name to her … (She) was a daughter and a mother and a sister and an auntie and a survivor. She mattered. She deserved better.”
Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services (VFRS) believes unattended candles were the cause of the fire, which broke out on the second floor of the building on April 11, leaving two people dead and five others injured.
VFRS says the building’s sprinklers had been turned off and a fire watch put in place following a previous fire, days earlier. The building operator was under orders to have the fire suppression system serviced.
— with files from Simon Little