Jackie Brewer to get memorial, 20 years after death by neglect

More than 20 years after she was forgotten and left to die in a dark room, Jackie Brewer will be remembered with a monument.

A memorial stone, surrounding garden space and benches in a corner of Rainbow Park in Saint John's south end will be named the Jacqueline Brewer Memorial Garden. 

The memorial is long overdue, according to Ward 3 Coun. Gerry Lowe.

• Jackie Brewer, the 2-year-old who was ignored to death
• 'It's really a scandal': Reasons for 53 deaths of at-risk children hidden by secretive committee

He said residents have been calling him daily to push for it.

"It's on the minds of so many hard-core south enders," Lowe said.

"'Where is it? When's it going to be done? Why isn't it done?'"

The naming of the memorial is planned for Sept. 22 at the park at Broad and Charlotte streets.

Jackie was only two years old when she died from dehydration inside her crib at an apartment in Saint John's south end on Dec. 17, 1996. Doctors determined she hadn't had anything to drink for six days.

Her death caused an outcry. An angry crowd gathered outside the courthouse the day her parents were each sentenced to three years and nine months in prison for manslaughter.

Original plaque disappeared

In an unusual move, Judge Hugh McLellan ordered a public memorial to Jackie, so everyone could remember what happened to her.

He even suggested an inscription:

"Aged 28 months, died in Saint John on December 17, 1996, neglected, dehydrated and forgotten in her crib at home, where she lived in loneliness, squalor and misery with her parents, under the supervision of social workers, health care experts and child protection officials. Her death diminishes all of us. We will remember Jacqueline."

Rainbow Park used to have a plaque in memory of Jackie Brewer and John Ryan Turner, a three-year-old boy from Miramichi who was beaten and starved to death by his parents in 1994.

But the plaque disappeared years ago. No one knew where where it went, according to Donna Reardon, the other councillor for Ward 3.

The garden in Rainbow Park was planted in 2012 and PULSE, a neighbourhood group, planned to name it after Jackie but never got around to doing it. 

"I think it's fallen off the radar for 20 years," Reardon said. "It's finally time."

Memorial will give children a 'voice'

The memorial will be down the street from the dark room where Jackie died, in one of the city's poorest neighbourhoods. It's a joint effort from the city and PULSE.

Reardon hopes the memorial will serve as a physical reminder of what happened to Jackie and other children who fell through the cracks of the province's child welfare system.

"They don't really have a voice and these reminders are their voice, that it has happened and it's still happening," Reardon said.

The anger around Jackie's death prompted the creation of a child death review committee.

• Explainer: How New Brunswick's child death review system works

When a child who was known to child protection officials dies, the committee reviews the case and makes recommendations on how to prevent it from happening again.

But it did happen again, when Juli-Anna St. Peter, also two years old, died in 2004.

A CBC News investigation found the committee works mostly in the shadows and the public doesn't know how the children are dying or if anything could have been done to save them.

• FULL COVERAGE: The Lost Children
• Government will look at making child death reviews 'more transparent'

The provincial government is reviewing the system to try to make it more transparent.

Speaking to CBC News earlier this year, Jackie's aunt, Sherry Bordage, said it was sad to see Rainbow Park no longer had any reminder of what her niece endured.

She called for reform to the system, so no other children will need a memorial in a park.

"We don't want to continue to have children die and build memories to them. We have to solve the problem."

Part 1: The Lost Children: The secret life of death by neglect

Jackie Brewer, the 2-year-old who was ignored to death

How New Brunswick's child death review system works

Part 2: The Lost Children: 'A child that dies shouldn't be anonymous'

Haunted by Juli-Anna: An 'agonizingly painful' preventable death

Part 3: The Lost Children: Change on horizon for First Nations child welfare

Mona Sock, a life stolen by abuse

Part 4: The Lost Children: Government weighs privacy over transparency in child deaths

Baby Russell: A few minutes of life, then a knife in the heart

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