Jim Garwood has always said that his mother, Jessie Garwood, who died when she was 87, didn’t die by accident
A man in Winnipeg says he finally has the news he’s been waiting almost 20 years for: his mother’s death is now being treated as a murder.
In an interview with CBC last week, Jim Garwood said, “My wife and I shed a few tears over it because, I mean, it’s been nearly 20 years.”
Jessie Garwood, his 87-year-old mother, was found dead and badly hurt in the basement of her Winnipeg home in 2004. She lived alone there.
Her death was first called “accidental,” but Garwood has known for a long time that it wasn’t.
After he talked to the medical examiner’s office about his concerns, the classification was changed to “undetermined” in 2007.
In a letter sent to Garwood on July 6, Manitoba’s chief medical examiner, Dr. John Younes, said that the death was now being treated as a murder.
“The letter came as a shock—a pleasant surprise,” said Garwood, who had been trying to solve the case for years. “But it did make me angry.”
He said that the news made him both sad and happy that they had finally come to that conclusion. “But because it was a murder, it’s also hard to see it as a win.”
Younes wrote in his letter that he “no longer believes that all of the injuries could have come from falls by accident.”
Younes wrote, “I can think of no other plausible explanation than that at least some of the injuries were done on purpose, based on the type and location of the injuries found at the autopsy and my much better understanding of the scene and the many important things I found there.”
He also thanked Garwood for his “tireless efforts to bring this evidence to light and to my attention.”
Younes’s letter says that he will tell the Winnipeg Police Service chief that the death is now being treated as a murder.
Const. Dani McKinnon, who handles public information, told CBC News in an email that the police service is “reviewing all correspondence and consulting with the Crown’s office.”
In an email to CBC, a provincial spokesperson said that the Crown prosecution service “confirms it will review any new evidence,” but that the province can’t say anything else at this time.
No charges lai
Police had looked into the death before, but no charges were ever brought.
Jim Garwood has been asking for years for the police investigation to be reopened. Even though a civil court ruled in October 2022 that the death was not an accident, the police did not investigate.
In a lawsuit that Garwood filed in 2019, he tried to hold his ex-stepdaughter Catherine Johnson responsible for the death of his mother.
In October 2022, Justice Theodor Bock of the Manitoba Court of King’s Bench ruled in Garwood’s favor and gave him money as compensation.
In the lawsuit, it was said that Johnson was the one who found Jessie Garwood’s body in the house’s basement and that the senior had died from a blow to the head.
According to the lawsuit, she had cuts and scrapes on the front, back, and both sides of her head. She also had broken ribs, a broken arm, and wounds on the backs of her hands.
In the civil suit, it was said that Johnson killed Jessie by either pushing her down the stairs or hurting her physically.
Johnson didn’t show up to the civil trial, but she did file a defense statement saying that she “had nothing to do with” the death.
After the civil court made its decision, Garwood asked Younes to look over the case again, and Younes did so.
Younes told CBC in an email on Friday that this made him look over “our entire investigation file on this case” and “the results of the different forensic consultants Mr. Garwood has hired over the years.”
Younes said he didn’t know about some of the findings before, but he had always been worried about the autopsy results, which, along with the extra information Garwood gave him, led him to reclassify the death.
Younes said that it would be up to the police or the Crown to decide what to do in response to this change.
The chief medical examiner said that it’s not unusual for the cause of death to change.
Younes said, “The cause of death is not set in stone and can always change if new information about the case comes to light.”
The fact that Jessie’s death has been reclassified twice shows that Mr. Garwood keeps trying to find new evidence.
Garwood said that he wants the police and the Crown to look at the case now.
But, he said, “I think it will be a bit of a struggle to get the Crown prosecutors or the police to do the right thing.”