In Ontario, autopsies are performed by pathologists and forensic pathologists, not coroners. Pathologists are experts in the study of disease. Forensic pathologists are experts in disease and injury. Their opinions help coroners determine the cause of death and the manner, which can be natural, accident, suicide, homicide or undetermined.

Pathologist Dr. Timothy Feltis was assigned to perform Bill’s autopsy at Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga. Having heard from the coroner that there were no concerns about foul play, and that police would not attend the autopsy to take photographs, Feltis approached his job with the same understanding. That this was not a suspicious death.

Bill Harrison died at a pivotal time for death investigations in Ontario, a few months after Justice Stephen Goudge released his damning report on pediatric forensic pathology. The Ontario government commissioned the Goudge Inquiry in the wake of revelations about flawed child death investigations by Dr. Charles Smith, once considered a leading expert in his field. Smith gave false and misleading testimony that led to innocent people being wrongly convicted or suspected in the deaths of children.

The inquiry found Smith had little forensic expertise and, in his own words, “woefully inadequate” training. He had reached his status primarily because no one else was willing or able to perform the work. At the time, Canada did not have its own forensic pathology training program and there was a severe shortage of experts in Ontario. The inquiry coincided with the launch of Canada’s first training program at the University of Toronto, and it led to the establishment of the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service.

The Goudge Inquiry made 169 recommendations, key among them a guiding principle that “the forensic pathologist should ‘think truth’ rather than ‘think dirty.’ ” Goudge cautioned against overstating findings, and stressed that evidence must be observed accurately and followed wherever it leads, “even if that is to an undetermined outcome.”

In the pre-Goudge era, non-forensic pathologists routinely performed forensic autopsies. Dr. Timothy Feltis was one. His lack of training and certification was not unusual given that it wasn’t available in Canada. Forensic pathology is a relatively new field that has been evolving with the advancement of science. Goudge underscored the need for an organized evolution.

After Goudge, Dr. Michael Pollanen, Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist, created a registry that matched pathologists to cases appropriate to their level of experience. He also issued an order that all suspicious deaths in the area should be sent to headquarters in downtown Toronto, where he could ensure a top-quality autopsy was performed by a forensic pathologist. If pathologists working in community hospitals received a suspicious case, the body was to be re-streamed and sent downtown.

The problem was, no one flagged Bill’s death as suspicious.

Examining Bill’s body, Feltis found no evidence of natural death. There were no heart abnormalities, no signs of disease. “No definitive anatomical or toxicological cause of death,” he wrote. What he did find were several injuries, including the neck abrasions, a large scalp bruise and, most concerning, a fractured sternum. Years later, in a preliminary inquiry, Ontario’s chief pathologist would say this was “an astonishing finding” that should have raised red flags.

Speaking with the coroner, Feltis learned Bill had been wearing a thin gold chain, which, he noted in his report, may have caused the abrasions. Seeking an explanation for the broken sternum, Feltis asked if there was a sharp corner Bill might have fallen on, and the coroner said yes, the bathroom vanity. The pathologist was never shown the police photos taken at the scene.

Feltis concluded that the injuries could have been caused by “a sudden collapse as the result of an acute cardiac arrhythmia, with a fall striking the head and chest.” It could have happened the other way around, he added, with a blow to the chest from a fall causing the heart to stop. His final report opined that the cause of death was “acute cardiac arrhythmia.”

This was the kind of conclusion the Goudge Inquiry had cautioned against. There was no evidence to support a heart problem and, as Pollanen would say at trial, acute cardiac arrhythmia is not a cause of death. It means that a person’s heart has stopped, but does not explain why. It was “a bit misleading,“ a prosecutor would say at trial.

Bridget did not see the post-mortem report until months later. When she finally read it, she was floored. “The autopsy basically said, here’s a healthy human being,” Blackwell, her brother, said in a police interview. “There was no reason for him to die.”

The day after Bridget discovered her husband’s body, more misfortune awaited the Harrison family. Caleb’s children were missing. It took a few days to confirm what Bridget feared: Merritt had taken off with them.

Bridget went to police, but officers would not take action without an updated family court order. Days passed before she could appear before a judge. On April 23, she gained temporary sole custody of the children, which led police to issue an arrest warrant for Merritt.

Peel Const. Michael Young led the abduction investigation. Sitting in a police interview room on May 6, 2009, Bridget outlined the family history. She told Young that her son was in jail, that she and her husband had been granted his share of custody, that Merritt was unhappy, that her husband had died — “completely unexpected, and so suddenly” — and the children had not been in school the next day. She said the coroner had not yet given a cause of death.

Young pursued the abduction, but never looked into the circumstances of Bill’s death, he later testified. It didn’t occur to him the two events might be related. He worked in the same department as the officers who’d investigated Bill’s death, but none of them ever made the connection, and neither did the coroner’s office. Had police investigated further, they would have learned that Merritt and Fattore left Mississauga on April 16 — the same day Bill died.

Feltis, the pathologist, did not find out about the abduction until years later. Had he known at the time, he said in an interview, he would have considered it a suspicious circumstance and sent the body downtown. “If I’d had all the information,” he said, “I would have done things differently.”

“Some people believe in coincidences, some do not,” Bridget Harrison wrote on April 19, 2010, two days before she was murdered.

She was referring to the timing of her husband’s death and the disappearance of her grandchildren, writing a victim impact statement for a hearing in which Merritt was expected to plead guilty to child abduction. Bridget took her suspicions no further than the allusion to coincidence. Instead, she wrote of the pain she had endured, dealing with her husband’s death and the disappearance of her grandchildren, fearing for their safety and worrying she’d never see them again. “The most desperate seven and a half months of my life,” she wrote.

During those months, Merritt and Fattore had taken the children across the country. They’d driven to Calgary, then travelled east in search of cheaper rent. They settled in Nova Scotia, where Merritt gave birth to her fourth child. Soon after, police were tipped off about their location after Fattore, who’d been using an alias, gave a rent cheque with his real name. In November, Merritt was arrested, charged with child abduction and returned to Ontario in the custody of Peel police.

“Some people believe in coincidences, some do not,”

— Bridget Harrison, refering to the timing of her husband's death and the disappearance of their grandchildren.

Bridget flew to Halifax and took her grandchildren home to Pitch Pine. With Caleb released early from jail on good behaviour and the kids back in school, something resembling a normal life resumed for a while, though mother and son continued to suffer Bill’s loss, and without him around to act as a buffer between them, their relationship grew strained.

Merritt was released on bail with the conditions that she not have unsupervised contact with the children or leave her house without authorization. On April 10, Merritt and Fattore drove to Pitch Pine, violating the court order. Merritt stayed in the vehicle, parked down the street, while Fattore went to the door. When Bridget answered, he handed her a letter and photos he said he’d come to deliver to the kids. At the same time, Caleb arrived home with the children and saw Merritt in the van. Spooked, Bridget called police. Merritt was arrested and charged with breaching bail. She spent three days in jail.

On April 21, the day before the abduction hearing, Caleb’s 8-year-old son rode his bicycle home from school, pulled open the front door and saw his Nanna lying at the bottom of the stairs. He ran to a neighbour’s house. For the second time in a year, an ambulance raced to the Harrison residence and police tape stretched around the house, fluttering in the spring breeze.