SAINT JOHN, N.B. -- The family of Serena Perry hugged and cried as a coroner's inquest jury said the 22-year-old psychiatric patient at a hospital in Saint John, N.B., died from asphyxia due to strangulation as the result of homicide.
Tasha King said it was important that the jury didn't deem her sister's death a suicide.
"I just know she would have never taken her life," she said.
Perry was found with a housecoat around her neck and unresponsive in the amphitheatre of the Saint John Regional Hospital on Feb. 14, 2012.
A male patient was arrested by Saint John police after Perry's death. He was later released without being charged.
Perry was an involuntary patient at the hospital's psychiatric unit and had paranoid schizophrenia. Pathologists were not able to confirm Perry's cause of death, but the probable cause was deemed to be asphyxia as a result of neck compression.
The five-member jury deliberated for four hours Tuesday after hearing more than two weeks of testimony. The jury's findings and recommendations had to get support from a majority of its five members.
The jury also issued recommendations, including on the need for community treatment orders in the province.
The Horizon Health district and a number of witnesses recommended the introduction of community treatment orders, which force a non-hospitalized psychiatric patient to take their medication and accept other treatment. New Brunswick and the Northwest Territories are the only jurisdictions in the country without such orders.
A doctor who treated Perry said she did well when she was on medication in hospital. But within days of being released, Dr. Vinod Joshi said Perry would often stop taking her medication.
Many mental health patients refuse to take their medication once they are released from hospital, Joshi said.
Outside the coroner's court, a spokeswoman for the Horizon Health district said she welcomed the recommendations.
"Certainly it gave us an opportunity to reflect on the changes that we made over the last months and years and I'm looking forward to working with the recommendations that have come forward," said Sue Haley, the director of addiction and mental health services for the Saint John area.
If community treatment orders had been in place in 2012, Haley said Perry might not have been in the hospital.
Coroner John Evans told the jury in his instructions that if the province were to legislate community treatment orders, perhaps it could be called "Serena's law."
"She might well be alive today if this was in place. That's pure speculation," he said.
King said she would be happy if a Serena's law was created and she thanked the jury for its finding on the cause of death.
"This is just a piece of the puzzle that may be enough for the government and the police department to open up the file again so maybe criminal charges can be laid so that it doesn't happen to another family ever again," King said.
Acting police Chief Glen McCloskey said in a statement that the force hasn't had time to review the recommendations, but it will determine whether any additional action is necessary once it has examined them.
The young male psychiatric patient who was seen with Perry the night she died and was considered a suspect said he left her in the amphitheatre after she started talking about an alien that was following her.
The young man -- whose name is protected by a publication ban -- didn't appear before the inquest but a statement from him was read into the record on Monday. He was issued a summons to appear at the inquest but declined because of his mental health issues.
In the statement read by Const. Stephen Davidson, the man says he was with Perry in the amphitheatre but left after she was talking about an alien that was following her. He wrote that as he was leaving, Perry held onto the sleeve of his housecoat and he slipped out of it, leaving it with her.
Davidson, the lead investigator in the case, told the court that DNA samples were taken and while the young man's DNA was found on the housecoat, it was not found anywhere on Perry.
He said he and other police officers tried tying a similar hospital housecoat around their own necks. They could not get it tight enough to choke themselves or even pass out, Davidson said.
The jury also recommended specialized training for security staff, spot checks of patients, and better contacts for patients, including cell numbers of caregivers and family members.
The hospital had difficulty notifying next of kin after Perry died. King learned of her sister's death through a friend on social media before hearing it from the hospital or police.
