A prisoner who was killed by a fellow inmate at the Edmonton Remand Centre four years ago died from “catastrophic head injuries,” according to a former medical examiner.
Barry Stewart suffered numerous skull fractures and bleeding in his brain after he was stomped by the man he shared a cell with, said Dr. Graeme Dowling.
“He died of a crush injury of the head,” Dowling said. “Almost like the head is in a vice, being crushed.”
In her opening statement, inquiry lawyer Mona Duckett said the 59-year-old died at the old downtown remand centre on May 12, 2011.
Stewart had been there as a prisoner since May 10, when he was arrested for failure to pay outstanding fines.
He was put into a cell with Justin Somers, an inmate with mental health problems.
Both were being housed temporarily in holding tank 10, in the admissions and discharge area, where they were awaiting placement in other units. At the time of the killing, sources told CBC News that psychologists assessed Somers and recommended he be kept apart from other inmates.
At 4:42 a.m., in a scene captured by a video camera, Somers stomped Stewart to death by jumping on his head 26 times. The attack lasted eight minutes.
That videotape will be entered as evidence at the inquiry.
Dowling said the victim was 5-foot-11 and weighed 137 pounds.
During the attack, Stewart’s right ear “was almost torn away from the scalp,” he said.
Both sides of his lower jaw were broken. Even the base of the skull was fractured.
Somers initially jumped from a bench onto the victim’s head. Dowling said Stewart’s skull was likely fractured with that first blow.
Asked if Stewart could have survived had guards intervened, he said: “My sense was with the initial assault, probably the lethal injury had taken place.”
Somers, who was 27 at the time of the attack, was charged with second-degree murder, but was found not criminally responsible in 2013.
