With the help of a cane, and a friend at her side, Elizabeth Gallant carefully navigated her way to the deputation table at Friday’s Peel Police Services Board meeting to express her family’s frustration.

It has now been about a year and a half since the provincial Office of the Independent Police Review Director launched its probe into Peel police investigations of the deaths of Gallant’s brother Bill Harrison, his wife Bridget, and their son Caleb. They died at the same Mississauga house between 2009 and 2013.

“We are deeply concerned about the time that has lapsed, and the fact that we still have no answers,” Gallant said in her deputation. “Our patience with this process has been exhausted.”

On behalf of the extended Harrison family, Gallant had two asks: that the board commit to implementing all recommendations from that much-anticipated police watchdog review, and hold any recommended disciplinary hearings.

“These two recommendations are actually my bucket list,” Gallant told the board in closing her brief, powerful deputation. “I have nothing else I would like to see completed more by the time I pass. I would feel greatly appreciative if we can just speed this process up and get something accomplished. I just feel that maybe I won’t live long enough if we keep going at this pace.”

In response, Peel police Chief Nishan Duraiappah told Gallant “you need to know with certainty, any recommendations from the OIPRD, our willingness to adopt them, is foremost. And secondly, of course, as it pertains to any disciplinary matters, there’s a commitment to see that through, too.”

Board member and Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie told Gallant she had no idea why the OIPRD investigation into officer conduct is taking so long, but “if there are any recommendations that are valuable to implement, we will. You have our commitment.”

The OIPRD review is in addition to a completed internal Peel police review, which “left everyone with more questions than answers,” Gallant had said in her deputation. The family was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement before seeing a copy of the Peel review.

Gallant said the family received a letter from Duraiappah in December that said he is also waiting for the OIPRD report, and that some of the recommendations from the internal review have been implemented.

“He expressed his commitment to working with the family and with the OIPRD to implement any further action that the Peel Regional Police can determine will assist them in future death investigations,” said Gallant.

The internal Peel report will be released publicly only after the OIPRD report is released, “to preserve the integrity of that investigation,” Const. Sarah Patten, a police spokesperson, said in an email to the Star.

Patten added that the purpose of the review “was not disciplinary in nature.” That said, “if the OIPRD investigation substantiates any conduct issues, we will assess those issues and ensure that those findings are addressed,” said Patten.

An OIPRD spokesperson said Friday only that the “Harrison complaint investigation remains active.”

“The OIPRD “endeavours to complete complaint investigations as soon as possible,” the spokesperson said. “In this case, although there is only one complaint, its complexity required the OIPRD to undertake four separate investigations.

“Once the OIPRD completes a complaint investigation, the report remains confidential and is only released to the complainant, the respondent officers, and their Chief. The next steps, which are taken by the Chief, depend on the nature of the findings: unsubstantiated, or substantiated; if substantiated, the matter may proceed to a disciplinary hearing.”

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At the heart of the reviews is how police missed two homicides, before a third happened in the same house at 3635 Pitch Pine Cres. In 2010, three years before Caleb was killed, Bridget was found dead at the bottom of the stairs of the family home, steps from the powder room where, in 2009, she had discovered Bill’s body.

Following Star stories about the case, Ontario’s Chief Coroner also announced an internal review of the Harrison death investigations and “concealed homicides” — deaths going back decades that were written off as natural, accidental, suicidal or undetermined but were later revealed to be criminally suspicious.

Police did not treat the deaths of Bill and Bridget as homicides until their son was murdered in 2013.

The death of Caleb, 40, who was found strangled in his bed in August 2013, finally led police to take a closer look at the family history, including an acrimonious relationship with his former spouse, Melissa Merritt, mother to his two children.

Merritt and her new partner, Christopher Fattore, with whom she had four younger children, were charged in the deaths of all three Harrisons.

In a criminal trial that concluded in January 2018, prosecutors alleged that Merritt and Fattore conspired to murder her former spouse and his mother, while Fattore committed the acts. Fattore alone was charged with the second-degree murder of Bill.

Prosecutors argued the Harrisons were murdered at key moments in a bitter custody battle over Merritt and Caleb’s two children. Bill died the same day Merritt and Fattore fled Ontario with the Harrison children in contravention of a court order that gave the grandparents their son’s share of custody while he was incarcerated for an impaired driving death.

Bridget died the day before she was to give a victim impact statement at Merritt’s parental abduction trial, at a time when Bridget had sole interim custody of the children. Three years later, Caleb died the night before a 50-50 summer custody split with Merritt was to revert to sole custody for him.

In January 2018, Merritt and Fattore were convicted of first-degree murder in Caleb’s death. Fattore was also found guilty of murdering Bridget while Merritt’s charge in her former mother-in-law’s death resulted in a mistrial after the jury could not reach a verdict. Fattore was found not guilty of murdering Bill. Merritt and Fattore have both filed appeals.

After the verdicts, relatives of the Harrison family called for an independent public inquiry, alleging that police and coroners failed to adequately investigate the first two deaths. No inquiry has been called.

The only independent probe so far — the OIPRD police conduct investigation — has dragged on for far longer than the four- to six-month wait the family had anticipated.

The Death Investigation Oversight Council, which oversees the work of the province’s coroners and forensic pathologists, conducted its own review and has recommended that the Office of the Chief Coroner call an inquest, chief coroner Dr. Dirk Huyer said Friday.

The recommendation is “something that I’ve been thinking long and hard about,” said Huyer, who added he wants to speak to the family and consider more factors before making a final decision.