3 days ago
Mother hopes inquest sheds light on son's death in Stony Mountain prison
Penny Brass was flooded with emotion when she learned an inquest had been called into the death of her son, Patrick Eaglestick, while he was incarcerated at Stony Mountain Institution.
She remembers the 'happy kid' who worked hard to get his high school equivalency credentials and was popular with friends and family.
'My son liked everything, basketball, any kind of sports team, he always wanted to play. If there was a powwow, he wanted to go. If there was somebody that needed help, he'd go and help,' Brass told the Free Press.
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Patrick Eaglestick, 25, died by hanging while at Stony Mountain in 2020. An inquest was called into his death this week.
She said it pains her to think about the brutality of his death at age 25. He died in hospital, one day after he was found hanging in his cell during a routine check on March 23, 2020. His death was ruled a suicide, and because he died while incarcerated, an inquest must be held as per the Fatality Inquiries Act.
'The hardest thing to lose is your grown child,' she said.
At the time of his death, Eaglestick was serving a two-year sentence for assault with a weapon, use of an imitation firearm while committing an offence, and failing to comply with a condition under recognizance. He hanged himself two months after his sentence began.
Five years later, Brass still has questions about his death. While he 'got in trouble' on the outside, resulting in his incarceration, Brass said, he was introduced to drugs while in prison during a previous five-year stint for his involvement in a robbery, without intervention from guards.
She said he was introduced to gang activity while he was in Stony; Eaglestick would call her from the prison and tell her he was scared of the gang members who harassed him.
She said there was no intervention from Stony employees.
She hopes the inquest finds that Stony Mountain was negligent in protecting her son.
'They were supposed to keep my son alive, they failed to do that,' she said. 'I wish I had my son here with me.'
On Monday, Manitoba chief medical examiner Dr. John Younes called inquests into the deaths of Eaglestick and six other men incarcerated at Stony Mountain and Headingley Correctional Centre in 2020 and 2021.
Among them is William Ahmo, whose 2021 death after a standoff with jail guards was deemed a homicide; the correctional officer who led the guards in the standoff was acquitted of criminal charges in September.
Another inquest will probe the death of Jesse Thomas, 36, who died from an accidental drug overdose on Nov. 19, 2021.
Five of the seven inquests are in relation to hanging deaths that occurred between March and December 2020: Eaglestick, Curt Harper, 36, Melvis Owen, 38, Farron Rowan, 32, and Adrian Young, 39.
Christine Latimer, the national executive director of the John Howard Society, said that number of suicides is surprising.
'To me, that's high… I track every announcement that (Correctional Services Canada) makes about a death in custody, and there's nothing like this,' she said.
In the past year, one inquest into a suicide by hanging at Stony Mountain has been published. Timothy Koltusky was 34 when he was found hanging by a ligature made from garbage bags tied to an electric fixture in his cell on March 12, 2019.
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Patrick Eaglestick's mother says he worked hard to get his high school equivalency credentials and was popular with friends and family.
Judges have recommended Stony retrofit electrical fixtures to prevent suicides as early as 2005.
Koltusky's inquest report, published in January, describes his suicide as tragic but not preventable; it notes the chief medical examiner's call for an inquest 'lacks jurisdiction to make recommendations to the federal authorities responsible for the operation of penitentiaries in Canada.'
Latimer said more needs to be done.
'Generally their answer to suicides is, hide the knives, right? There's nothing that looks at the circumstances which leads people to be suicidal, but they want to stop the means by which people can actually carry out the threat,' Latimer said.
'You also need to look at their mental wellbeing.'
University of Winnipeg criminal justice professor Michael Weinrath was also surprised by the number.
'It's a problem when you have that many hangings, in one particular period,' he said.
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Stony Mountain, which was built in 1876, is the oldest correctional facility in the country. Many cells are smaller than what current standards allow, Weinrath said, but the high cost of rebuilding the prison meant they were grandfathered in.
Retrofitting cells to ensure they don't have suspension points for hanging is also costly, he said.
He's curious whether the number of inquests on one method of death will inspire change.
'Certainly, I think the management at Stony Mountain would come under some scrutiny, in the end,' he said.
Malak AbasReporter
Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg's North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.
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