Three years ago, a tragic discovery was made in an East Vancouver single-room occupancy building. The body of “Jimmy” Van Chung Pham, labeled a predator by the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, was found by the police. However, what went unnoticed at that time were the bodies of missing Indigenous teenager Noelle O’Soup and a woman named Elma Enan. Their decomposing remains were only located months later in the same room, occupied by what the Vancouver police described as an “extreme hoarder.”
The attending officer and the community coroner, who investigated Pham’s death scene remotely, are now under scrutiny for failing to notice the additional bodies. Former community coroner Sonya Schulz revealed that the BC Coroners Service had stopped requiring coroners to physically attend certain death scenes to save money. This cost-cutting measure, according to Schulz, led to oversights like the one at Pham’s apartment.
The failure to detect the bodies sooner has raised concerns about the neglect and financial constraints within the coroner service, impacting the vital work of field coroners. The lack of proper scene assessment due to remote attendance may have contributed to the delay in finding the additional bodies.
While efforts are being made to address the compensation and working conditions of field coroners, the Pham case underscores systemic issues within the BC Coroners Service. Calls for a coroner’s inquest into the deaths of O’Soup and other individuals point to the need for comprehensive reforms to ensure thorough investigations and proper handling of death scenes.