A coroner's inquest is underway Monday nearly one decade after the unsolved murder of an Ottawa inmate who was stabbed to death while serving time at a Kingston prison, just steps away from a guard post.
An early investigation revealed the guards at Collins Bay Penitentiary claimed they checked on prisoner Donald Mongeon every hour before finding his dead body in his prison cell. Later, investigators discovered Mongeon lay dead in a pool of his own blood under a cot in his cell for more than six hours, only 50 yards away from where prison guards were stationed.
"How could you miss it? If you do your job you just can't walk by a cell and not see blood on the floor and out in the hall. It was right into the hallway," said Joe Martin, Mongeon's father.
"You don't expect your son to die, especially in jail when they're supposed to be under the supervision of corrections."
Members of Correction Services Canada are among the main witnesses at the inquest into the 27-year-old's death.
Although several witnesses will testify on what happened on and after the night of the killing, a coroner's inquest doesn't seek to lay any blame for the crime.
"It's not a murder trial. The jury is specifically prohibited from finding legal responsibility against any entity," crown attorney Brian Fukuzawa told CTV Ottawa.
"There's two purposes for the jury at this inquest. One, is to determine how this individual passed away - the how, when they passed away, who it was, etc. The other is to hopefully come up with some recommendations to prevent a similar death in the future."
The inquest is set to hear testimony over the next three weeks.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's John Hua
