The British Columbia Ministry of Public Safety recently expressed surprise over the BC Coroners Service’s ongoing practice of remotely attending certain death scenes post-2019. Ministry spokeswoman Tasha Schollen stated that the ministry believed in-person attendance had been reinstated six years ago, and they are currently engaging in discussions with the Coroners Service to address this issue.
This revelation follows a disclosure by former community coroner Sonya Schulz to The Canadian Press that in 2022, two bodies were overlooked at a Vancouver death scene while a coroner attended remotely by phoning a police officer at the location. Schulz mentioned that the service had ceased the requirement for coroners to physically visit certain scenes to cut costs a few years back.
Additionally, a delegate of B.C.’s director of employment standards highlighted in a recent ruling that in cases where a field coroner is unavailable in the region of a reported death, a coroner from another area will typically conduct a remote investigation of the scene.
In a tragic turn of events, the bodies of missing Indigenous teenager Noelle O’Soup and a woman named Elma Enan were discovered in the same apartment where “Jimmy” Van Chung Pham had been found earlier in February 2022, after months of going unnoticed until residents reported a foul smell.
The Ministry has described this as a heartbreaking situation and assured that they are actively liaising with the BC Coroner’s Service to address the concerns raised.