Inquest looks at how convicted double murderer killed himself in locked Saskatoon cell with no apparent weapon
Dan Zakreski | CBC News | Posted: October 29, 2018 8:47 PM | Last Updated: October 29, 2018
Traigo Andretti died at Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon on July 2, 2016
Traigo Andretti created a carefully staged suicide in his cell at the Regional Psychiatric Centre, leaving crime scene investigators with a mystery.
The 40-year-old bled to death from a single long gash on his left arm.
Andretti was in the Churchill Unit at the facility in Saskatoon, which is both an accredited hospital and a federal prison. The facility houses individuals with significant mental health issues and criminal convictions, jurors at a coroner's inquest into Andretti's death heard Monday.
The Churchill Unit is the centre's acute mental health unit.
Garrett McArthur is the correctional officer who discovered Andretti unresponsive in his cell on the morning of July 2, 2016. Andretti bunked alone and had been seen alive when locked into the cell the previous night.
McArthur told the inquest that Andretti was laying flat on his stomach on his cell bunk, a pen in his right hand resting on a journal by his side. His left arm dangled over the edge of the bed, his hand in a makeshift basin under the bed made of rolled up blankets, garbage bags and toilet paper.
It was full of blood.
The mystery?
"No blade weapon was ever found," McArthur said.
"The theory was that he'd flushed it down the cell toilet."
A dark past
Andretti was convicted of first-degree murder in 2014 for the death of his wife, Jennifer McPherson.
Her remains were found scattered on a remote island off the east coast of Vancouver Island.
Andretti was subsequently charged with second-degree murder in the 2006 slaying of Myrna Letandre in Manitoba, for which he later pleaded guilty.
Some of Letandre's dismembered remains were found in 2013 in a Winnipeg rooming house where Andretti had been living.
Andretti had been at the Saskatoon psychiatric centre for several months before he died. Jurors heard how he had talked about killing himself, which is why he had been moved to the Churchill unit.
Suicide notes and a calendar
A half dozen Correctional Service of Canada staff testified on the first day of the inquest.
Jurors heard how staff conducted checks during the day and night, the emphasis on ensuring that there were "living, breathing bodies" in the cells.
Registered nurse Rebecca Riekman testified that the first staff called to Andretti's cell when his body was discovered performed CPR on him, even though she said it was apparent that he had been dead for some time.
When asked why by coroner's counsel Robin Ritter, she replied, "we were concerned with optics and blame laid."
An evidence book tendered at the inquest contains photos of suicides notes discovered in his cell. Jurors also heard that, days later, staff discovered a calendar in his cell when cleaning it out.
In the slot for June 27 was a large notation that read: T.E.A., then DOA.
Andretti's full name is Traigo Ehkid Andretti.
The inquest is expected to hear from 13 witnesses and run four days.