Police found Traevon Chalifoux-Desjarlais' body in his bedroom cupboard 4 days after he went missing
WARNING: This story contains sad details.
The group's home employee who reported Traevon Chalifoux-Desjarlais missing testified that he searched the teenager's room but could not remember whether he had ever looked in the cupboard where his body was eventually found.
"Obviously I didn't check well enough because I didn't find any," said Murray McMaster, speaking at the Coroner's Inquiry into the death of the Cree teenager.
Traevon's body was found hanging in a cupboard on September 18, 2020, four days after McMaster reported the 17-year-old's disappearance to the Ministry of Children and Family Development's after-hours reporting line, and three days after McMaster reported a missing person. report to Abbotsford police.
McMaster testified that when he came in on his shift around 8 a.m. on September 14, he did not see Traevon and thought he was still in bed. Brett Claxton, the worker McMaster took over, testified that Traevon had made a grilled cheese sandwich at 10:30 p.m. the night before.
McMaster said when he went to wake Traevon around noon on September 14, he noticed Traevon was not in his bed. 10 p.m. that night, after being unable to find Traevon, McMaster left a message on the MCFD reporting line. The next day at 2pm, he filed a missing persons report with Abbotsford police.
McMaster testified that he searched Traevon's bedroom on September 15 and September 16, but found nothing. He said he also sent a fellow group homeworker, Geoff Holley, to check the rooms.
On Sept. 17, McMaster said he started to smell and wondered if there was a dead animal in the hole Traevon had made in his bedroom wall.
"That's when I started looking in other areas of the house, the boiler room ... under the stairs," he said.
The court heard that McMaster requested the garbage disposal on the morning of September 18 to remove any items that might have caused the smell.
That same morning, two Abbotsford Police officers came to the group's home without being summoned there. McMaster alerted officers to the smell and they went into the bedroom and immediately found Traevon's body in the cupboard.
Employees declined to say the teens were a suicide risk
McMaster was asked why he refused to say Traevon was a suicide risk when he called on the missing persons report. He replied that previous attempts to arrest Traevon under mental health measures had failed.
"When I called APD when he was having suicidal ideation, they didn't catch him so [I felt] it wasn't legal," she said.
The court heard about the incident on August 28, 2020, when Chalifoux-Desjarlais said he probably cut his wrists after he smashed a mattress and sheets with something sharp.
McMaster said he called the police hoping they would bring Traevon under the Mental Health Act but was told there was no reason to be arrested.
McMaster and Claxton both testified that Traevon had stopped taking medication near his death. The court also heard that Traevon began banging on his bedroom wall, possibly with his head, causing a hole in the wall.
According to evidence provided by Abbotsford Police Const. Daniel Beebe, McMaster reported to police that Traevon was last seen at 1 p.m. on September 14, contrary to what McMaster previously told the court about not seeing Traevon at all that day. This article was written by EDUKASI CAMPUS.