Tormented by Trauma |14
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Hey, it's Nancy. Before we begin today, I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. A listener's note. The following episode contains coarse language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature and may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.

In early 2007, a young widowed mother of two was just settling into a bigger home after living for several years in a cramped apartment with extended family. She was looking forward to spring because she finally had a backyard and was going to plant a garden. She had so many hopes, and as a new Canadian, this was the place her dreams were supposed to come true.

But on a cold, snowy day in February of 2007, all those plans came to an abrupt end. When you really get to know somebody and start to kind of walk in their shoes as much as you can and know a bit of their background, it just totally changes how you view them. This is a tragedy, and you have to be there to see it, to feel it, to sense it, the desperation of these people.

I'm Nancy Hixt, a crime reporter for Global News. Today on Crime Beat, I highlight the importance of knowing the full story before rushing to judgment because we never know what people have gone through. This is Tormented by Trauma.

This story begins many miles away from Calgary in war-torn Chechnya. Aset Magomedova was born in 1970. She grew up in a rural area near the capital, Grozny. She was from a large family and got married when she was 17 years old.

For a time in Chechnya, before the war, she ran a little restaurant in the town, and I think she was quite successful at it. She very much liked to cook, and she was a good cook. That's Marilyn Millions, a close friend of the Magomedovas. She graciously agreed to be a part of this episode to help me share their story.

In 1992, Aset and her husband had a daughter. They named her Aminat, but everyone knew her as Amina. And then in 1994, a bomb was dropped on their house and her husband was killed. And she was expecting their second child at that time.

So that was the start of, I think, things just going downhill for them. Asset and her young family were victims of the first Chechen war with Russia, which started in 1994.

she was left widowed. Not long after that, she was badly injured herself. She was on a bus one day going to a rural area and the bus was bombed and all the people were taken prisoner. She lost half a foot in the situation. And of course, being thrown into prison was horrendous.

going to go into all the details, but it was bread and water and, you know, the treatment one would receive in a women's prison camp run by Russian soldiers. You can imagine, I'm sure, all the things that probably they had to put up with. And her foot was really never that properly. It was sort of just a slap-happy job of stitching her up together. And that was it. So she always had to live...

with that foot and that pain and everything from then on. Months went by and Asset's family had no idea where she was. In the meantime, her parents cared for her two children. They thought she was dead.

Her father was searching for her and showing pictures to everybody asking if they had seen her. And finally, somehow he linked up with the Red Cross and they were able to find her.

And then her children would have gone through a very traumatic time because at that time, in the middle of the night, any time somebody could bang on the door and the next thing there were soldiers with guns and, you know, they shot people on sight. And it was just a very violent, traumatic time, fearful time. She was imprisoned for six months before Asset was finally reunited with her family.

But the danger and uncertainty didn't end there. Hostilities in Chechnya broke out again in the late 90s. People struggled just to stay alive. It was a humanitarian crisis, one of the worst in the world at the time, with hundreds of thousands of people being displaced in the region, no place to live and many going hungry.

Aset, her two children, along with her sister and her child, fled to neighboring Azerbaijan, where they hid in cellars, leaving many family members, including their parents, behind.

It was in Azerbaijan where the United Nations provided them with paperwork to apply for refugee status. They were accepted as refugees because it wasn't felt that they would even survive the winter. They were in such dire living conditions. So that's how they ended up over in Canada.

In September 2003, Aset arrived in Canada with her 11-year-old daughter Amina, her 8-year-old son, and her sister and child. That's when they met Marilyn Millions. Marilyn is a retired school teacher and volunteers her time as a member of the St. James Anglican Church Refugee Committee in Calgary.

which helped sponsor Asset and her family to come to Canada. They were government-funded refugees and a representative had asked that St. James Anglican Church, who had worked previously with refugees, if they could provide practical assistance like helping with housing, schools, medical appointments, etc. and introduce the Canadian way of life.

I got to know a set particularly because she couldn't get into any they had no English and she couldn't get into any classes at the beginning and so she and I started working together so that I could teach you some basic conversation and that's really I think when we first bonded together and I used to take

conversation for her slowly and then she would practice the rest of the time when I wasn't around playing these tapes back and forth. So that was how I sort of got started with the family. Marilyn told me they became fast friends. She and her sister were approximate ages of my daughters and so it was easy to bond with them and I just couldn't believe what they had to go through compared to what most

women of that age had to deal with in Canada. There was just no comparison. She wasn't an overly confident person, I wouldn't say. She was gentle. She was very outgoing with people and very friendly. Like, she talked to people at the bus stop. She talked to people when we went places and we were waiting in lines at the doctor's offices and things. She would just go for it with what English she had. And people would usually engage with her. She was just that kind of a person.

She was very much a homemaker. I mean, you could eat off her floor. She was very clean, very meticulous, and she loved to cook and she loved to bake. She was hospitable. If you ever went there, you had to have tea and she had to make you something.

I know she told me when she first came that coming here to Canada was like coming to another planet. And so that kind of told me a lot about how different it was for her. The family lived together in a tiny apartment. Marilyn said it was very cramped quarters. And Aset's son had serious health problems that took a toll on the family.

He was sick before he came, he couldn't walk, he was in a wheelchair, a horrible thing that didn't even fit him, you know, his body. And he could just... he'd never been able to walk. He kind of... maybe a little bit to begin with, but he basically crawled. And they had told a set that, "Oh, when you come..." I don't know who had told them this, "But when you come to Canada, they have good medical opportunities, and they'll be able to help him and he'll walk."

So it was very, very devastating. In fact, there was a lot of grieving when she got the report that he had muscular dystrophy and things were only going to go downhill. Marilyn said it was clear Amina struggled with what she witnessed at a young age back in Chechnya. She had only gone to school for one year.

because she came over and she's 11, but she only had one year of schooling because all education was pretty well interrupted.

I don't think that she probably had much of a childhood because they were hiding and they were scared all the time. Growing up in the midst of conflict meant there were no games, no toys, only loneliness and trauma. She grew up in a fearful, fearful situation. They didn't really know what had happened to her mother, you know, all the rest of it. So, um...

You know, she never really talked very much about her child. Nina didn't talk about her childhood. But I could tell from different things that went on that she was fearful. For example, we went out with my family. She knew my family well and she was comfortable with us.

She went out with us once on a wiener roast out to some property we have and it started to get dark. And she was in an absolute panic and we had to keep the light on in the car all the way back.

Marilyn said she spent a lot of time with Amina as she adjusted to life in Canada. Her mother expected her to do a lot.

you know, could be kind of at her beck and call to help with the brother, which is very common in these kind of situations. So I used to take her out with myself sometimes and

You know, we went to the library and we went on some picnics and mini golfing and skating in Callaway Park and all the rest of it. And she really enjoyed those things. And to her, they were adventures. Another kid of 11 might think, ho-hum, but to her, it was really something.

One really big challenge for Amina was school. Because she was 11 when she arrived, she was placed into a class with kids her age. But you have to remember, she had almost no education. She came with grade one skills and going into grade six.

And her math was very, very weak. And a friend of mine from the church who was a teacher tutored her and got her up a little bit. But she said she's really, really behind in math. And I mean, that's really, you know, a lot of us struggle with math. Now, when you're that far behind, five grades behind in math...

The one thing that really seemed to grab her that she would really concentrate on was she didn't know how to write, handwrite. And of course, at that time, most of the kids did. And so I taught her to do handwriting and she would practice and practice and practice doing it, you know, because I think it was something that she felt that she could do, that she could do with the other kids.

A year later, Amina was told she had to leave the school where she finally felt comfortable to attend junior high. Well, what really annoyed me was it was at a school where they had a lot of ESL and she was happy there.

And it wouldn't have hurt. I'm a great one for keeping kids back if they're really not ready. And they insisted, because I kind of went to bat for them, that she had to go on to junior high school because she was going to be, you know, in age appropriate to go on, never mind that she didn't have the ability to go on.

What happened was Amina started going back. I got calls because the school's principals and everybody always called me because they realized that a set couldn't understand, you know, especially when they talk quickly. So they'd always go through me and then I would explain it to a set.

Anyways, Amina was going back in her lunch hour to the school, the elementary school she'd been in, to play with the kids because she felt comfortable there. Amina missed out on a lot of things as a child, so she embraced what many kids took for granted.

And I know when we went to the zoo when she was 12, she really wanted to go on the playground and she wasn't that big and it said for 11 and under or something. And I let her go because she was as happy as a clam, you know, because she had never had a chance to do those kind of things. She'd not had a chance to play with dolls. She just, all that had been missing from her childhood had been very fearful and probably adult-oriented childhood.

As a former school teacher, Marilyn knows it's common to try to keep kids with their own age group. But in this case, she disagreed with that decision. She said Amina simply wasn't ready for junior high. And from then on, everything just went downhill.

So here you have a young girl who didn't have a childhood because she witnessed the horrors of war firsthand. She's in a new country, learning a new language, and then she's ripped from the place where she finally felt comfortable and sent to junior high. Amina told Marilyn she was struggling. And then she learned very quickly that kids, in particular teenage girls, can be vicious.

She dressed a little differently too. Her mom wanted her to wear dresses, of course. You know, there were parts of the culture and so forth that she hung on to. I mean, she didn't wear a hijab or anything like that, but her mom thought she should wear dresses. Well, you know, when dad girls give up dresses pretty early these days, way back in elementary, and pants weren't really, you know. So right there, I'm sure she felt different. And I tried to...

Amina struggled to fit in, and she was bullied.

At a stage in her life when she needed friends and the comfort of belonging, her schoolmates teased her and rejected her. She didn't have friends and then she kind of got in with the wrong crowd and then she started shoplifting. Amina began acting out violently. And the way she dealt with problems was to get angry. So then she started, you know, in grade seven, I've got this down. She threatened to bring a knife and kill a girl who was bothering her.

and that kind of thing. And then she was suspended and then it just went from one thing to another. By 13, 12, end of 12, 13, she was

Yeah, really on the path of destruction, really. The time came when she turned against her mom, she turned against me. You know, I was there one day and I knew that she had been stealing from anybody that was there. And she was watching me because I had to go to the bathroom. And I remember I took my purse with me. She looked utterly disgusted because I think that, you know, I thought, no, if I leave my purse there...

She's going to steal something, right? And then we're going to have to deal with all that. Amina was moved from school to school, program to program. She assaulted other children. And at one point, she assaulted a teacher. And the one time I know she wouldn't go home when the police picked her up and she refused to go in the house. She was in a squad car and a set came out and, you know, was trying and the police were trying and she wouldn't go in.

And the police phoned me because the set said phone my friend. So they phoned me and explained it and said, oh, you know, this is, we, you know, we're kind of at an impasse. Marilyn said officers suggested they take her to a social agency for at-risk youth just until things could get sorted out.

Well, Aset wasn't keen on that. You know, she didn't really want to be separated. You know, she distrusted this kind of stuff and I don't blame her. So I assured her and the police had assured me and I assured her that she would be safe there overnight and that we could, everybody could kind of calm down and then in the morning we could deal with this. So she agreed to it.

At 4.30 in the morning, I got a call from the people at Avenue 15 to say that Amina had left to go to a party with a 21-year-old. And it's one of these, and he screamed across Calgary. And I said, but why? Why would you let her go? Because it's her choice. And these guys had been, you know, they were, they kind of...

would kind of roam around outside and then entice girls out and then they'd take them with Motel Village. And I mean, I had to explain that to a set. I just felt awful because giving her my word that Amina would be safe because that's what I believed. I didn't believe that when you took a child there, and she was only 14, that if somebody came along that said, let's party, she could go if she wanted to.

Court documents state Amina began to wear inappropriate clothing and that she became promiscuous and would trade sex for drugs. At 14, she stopped going to school and was living on the street.

I'm sure at this point you're likely wondering why Aset didn't try to stop her from acting out and discipline her. And then she heard things about how, you know, you don't have to listen to your mother, you know, and we have rights, you know, all that kind of stuff. Amina made allegations that Aset was using corporal punishment and social services became involved.

Court documents show allegations of physical violence in the home were not substantiated. But concerns about Amina's mental health existed. Social workers noted that several community and professional supports were involved with the family to assist the mother. There were numerous allegations like this made by Amina. And court records show police were also involved, but could not substantiate the claims.

At about that same time, Asset was just settling into a new rental home through subsidized housing. She was so excited and she was going to have a garden and I'd been over and seen where she was going to put the garden because she loved to garden back home. And so this place had it and she'd already cleaned up the yard and there was a lot of litter and she'd cleaned that up and she was so excited about all that. You know, they would have kind of a home and that kind of thing.

But everything Aset was doing to build a happy future was overshadowed by Amina's struggles. Court documents state Amina seemed to be out of control, unmanageable. She threatened her mother and brother, and their relationship deteriorated quickly. Because of the level of conflict in the home, a no-contact order was put in place between Amina and her mother.

Marilyn said Asset didn't know what else to do, that she was scared of her own daughter. I really felt that she loved her and she was totally, she just was totally bewildered and didn't really know what to do, you know, because just nothing seemed to kind of work. And she'd become very mean-spirited and wild, you know, like she just had kind of really flipped on me.

But Amina ignored the no-contact order. On February 25th, 2007, she called her mother to say that she was tired and hungry and to ask if she could return home. Her mother welcomed her back.

Marilyn said she had a very bad feeling about Amina's return and was in the process of applying for a court order to get Amina into a treatment program. Like, and I look back on all the people I contacted, and this was with ADAPT that I was going to see if they would take her for, I think it was a week for addiction, you know, and she would be safe for a week, but you had to apply and all that.

On the evening of February 26th, Marilyn called Asset to make sure everything was okay. Asset told her Amina had been on a rampage. She broke a window. She tore down the door. She was pretty wild. The next day, February 27th, Amina was supposed to go to court to be sentenced for a charge of assault. Instead, Marilyn got a call from Asset's sister.

Amina was dead. Aset Magomedova was charged with the second-degree murder of her daughter.

Marilyn said long before any of the facts were presented in a trial, Asset was convicted in the court of public opinion. When I went to the apartment where, but then she was, you know, granted, we got bail for her. There's this huge picture of her, you know, in the newspaper, you know,

containers they have. And she's living right in that apartment. And it's a horrible picture, just horrible. And they've got, what do they call it? Yeah, a mum monster. Like, they just smeared, it was just a total smear. I was so annoyed, I just about kicked the whole thing down. It was just that kind of thing. And then when she'd have to go to something, some people would be just really, really rude to her, you know?

judging when they don't even know the full story. Marilyn, her friend from the day she first arrived in Canada, remained a faithful friend and supporter of Asset as she both grieved the loss of her daughter and faced the justice system.

I'll never forget, of course she couldn't attend the funeral or anything else. It's not exactly a funeral, it's a prayer service and so forth. Anyway, she of course couldn't be there, but we went and quite a few teachers and so forth that

had dealt with Amina, they were there, you know. And afterwards she herself, because she had no money for... She's buried, Amina's buried out at the Muslim cemetery by Cochrane, but she had no money for a gravestone or anything. So she got Samantha herself and everything else and made a form and she made a gravestone. And then she engraved it.

However, she did that and painted it with, you know, Amina's name and date of birth and that kind of thing on it. In the fall of 2009, about a year and a half after her daughter's death, Aset Magomedova stood trial for the second-degree murder of Amina. Aset testified in her own defense. Court heard Amina was scheduled to appear in court, but she didn't want to go. An argument with her mother ensued.

Aset said she killed Amina in self-defense. She said they were in the sewing room, and at one point, Amina went into the kitchen and returned with two knives, apparently intent on attacking her mother with them. Aset said when she saw the knives, she feared for her life, and while driven by that fear, she wrapped a scarf around her daughter's neck and strangled her.

According to court records, a 15-inch knife was found in the sewing room. Asset had minor scratches on her face and arm, and a window in the room was broken by a chair.

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy advised that this kind of strangulation would result in the loss of consciousness in 5 to 15 seconds and that death would follow after an additional 2.5 to 5 minutes if the pressure was continuously applied. Her defense lawyer was Mark Tyndale, now a provincial court judge. He had this to say at the time.

She was facing that day a very strong young woman who had a demonstrated history of at least 10 prior acts of violence, often against adults. She had four clearly proven circumstances where she made threats to kill with a knife.

In my view, when Asset, who is the accused, was facing this enraged young woman with a knife, she had no choice but to prevent, to preserve herself. Marilyn Millions testified she didn't believe Asset intended to kill Amina. But I mean, you know, she never meant for that to happen. It was just, she was scared. The prosecution argued it was not self-defense, but murder.

In his closing argument, Crown Prosecutor Mack Vonberg asked, "Who brings a scarf to a knife fight and comes out without a scratch?" How long do you have to hold a scarf around somebody's neck and keep it pulled tight

before it's obvious that you're doing it only to kill that person. The trial judge acknowledged that Amina, with her history of aggression and violence, presented a threat, but concluded that the force the mother used was unreasonable. He rejected evidence that the knife was used in the altercation and rejected Asset's claim of self-defense.

The judge accepted expert evidence that Amina lost consciousness within 15 seconds, but her death required pressure from the ligature for another two to five minutes. However, the trial judge found the Crown failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the intent for second-degree murder. Aset Magomedova was convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

It was following that conviction, but prior to sentencing, that Mark Tyndale became a judge. Alan Heppner took over Asset's case. Heppner was appointed as a Queen's counsel decades ago. It recognizes Canadian lawyers for exceptional merit and contribution to the legal profession. He is arguably one of the most high-profile defense lawyers in Calgary.

I have been practicing for a long time since the late 70s, mid-70s in criminal, late 70s really in criminal law. And I do all sorts of criminal defense work, including homicides, impaired driving, thefts, assaults, sexual assaults. This is the whole area, including quasi-criminal charges from other acts, income tax act. I do a lot of drug defense work as well.

Heppner is extremely media friendly and agreed to be a part of this episode to help shed light on what happened following Asset's conviction. The Crown asked for a sentence of 12 years in prison. Here again is prosecutor Mack Vomberg. It's appropriate that there be a message to people this is not how you resolve a dispute with a teenage child. If you do, you will bear the consequence.

It's a message not only to her, but to society at large. During sentencing, Alan Hefner read out reference letters in court from people who knew Asset and described her as loving and caring and in no way a risk to the public.

One of those letters was from her then 15-year-old son, who was severely impacted by muscular dystrophy and at the time was given just a few years to live. He said to the judge, you know my condition, I need my mom to help me. I want my mom. Who else is going to help me if my mom doesn't help me? It was a very poignant letter that was really touching. Heppner pointed out the history of violence that led up to Amina's tragic death. As a father of daughters,

You know what goes on in a junior high school, the difficulty. So you compound that with that background. And she was just struggling, struggling on a number of levels and lashing out. And the mother was doing everything she could to support her. In addition to the support that the mother got from this group from the church that was so wonderful to her. I think that she fell through the cracks for a number of reasons. I don't think Asset knew how to

and to get the necessary information to help Aminat that she could. I mean, I think that, you know, there were a lot of people trying, but...

It just didn't happen. It didn't happen. And there's no one to blame. It's just the way the circumstances evolved. During sentencing, court also heard from forensic psychologist Dr. Patrick Bailey, who was asked to do a psychiatric assessment of Aset Magomedova. When you have an isolated occurrence of tragic behavior,

you look to see what else there is in the history that might indicate an enhanced level of risk or that supports that notion that otherwise this is a pro-social individual who's unlikely to get into trouble again.

And the result of the assessment was, in my opinion, Ms. Magomedova was a low risk to reoffend in a violent manner, that she was likely to benefit from doing some counseling over various issues. I mean, she had experienced the death of her daughter. Yes, she'd been responsible for it, but she's still a parent who's lost her daughter and still a parent struggling financially.

with the changes that accompanied her move to Canada and struggling with the issues related to post-traumatic stress disorder because of the things that she'd experienced and witnessed when she was in Chechnya. Dr. Bailey said it was clear to him the mother regretted what she'd done to her daughter. Sorry, I'm getting a little bit choked up because I remember the interview. She struggled in the interview and we actually had to do a couple of interviews because she

When talking about the death of her daughter, the technical phrase is she became catatonic. She wouldn't speak, she wouldn't move. It was just tears flowing down her face. She didn't want to kill her daughter. She wanted to stop the argument.

And clearly it went too far. And she recognized that there was a level of criminal responsibility that flows from that. But there was no question in my mind that she was remorseful for what she had done and suffering as a result of her own actions. Alan Hefner argued Asset should not serve time in prison. Because she was convicted of only manslaughter, there's quite a range of penalties that are available.

And I was able to convince Judge Justice Levecchio, Saul Levecchio, to give probation at the time. And needless to say, that didn't sit well with the Crown, who didn't accept any aspect of the self-defense. And, um...

Following sentencing, both sides appealed the conviction of manslaughter. The prosecution argued this was murder. Heppner maintained it was self-defense. In May of 2011, Alberta's top court ordered a new trial.

Just months later, before Aset Magomedova could be tried again for the second-degree murder of her daughter, she got sick. In the spring of 2012, a little less than a year after the Court of Appeal ruling, Aset was having some irregular bleeding.

Here's her friend, Marilyn Millions. She wasn't keen on going for a pap test. Like, you know, I said to her, you know, over here we have a pap test every year, you know. Well, for one thing, she didn't want it to have to be a man. And I couldn't say for sure that it wouldn't be, you know. Like, sometimes you could go to a woman doctor, but then they might have somebody do it, you know.

So anyways, she kind of put it off and then when she had it, it was bad. Aset was diagnosed with metastatic cervical cancer. In the months that followed, she had radiation and other treatments, but the cancer continued to spread.

The retrial of a Calgary mother accused of murdering her own daughter is on hold. The defense for Asit Magomedova is trying to have the charge of second-degree murder stayed. Nancy Hixt has the latest.

Aset Magomedova has to be wheeled into court, confined to a stretcher. She's no longer able to walk and has to have two medics constantly by her side. Her doctor says her cancer is not curable and she only has a 1% chance of surviving the next five years. Aset Magomedova is suffering from cancer that's spread from the cervix to the lymph system. She is palliative and she's not going to get better.

Heppner said this was extremely rare and it presented an unusual situation in the courts.

because it was a trial of second-degree murder. I mean, it had some... there was not publicity on it, there was notoriety to it. I had to have her in court or a judge would have issued a warrant, had the authority issue a warrant for arrest. I didn't want that. She was very ill and couldn't get around. So I made arrangements with the Alberta Health Services to have her brought to court in a gurney. Made all the arrangements.

In all of Heppner's years of practicing law, he'd never had this happen to a client. She was in and out. She was not clearly understood. First of all, it was a language issue. But even with the language issue, she just, she knew that I was...

defending her, she knew I was doing my best for her because you build a relationship with the client and her family. Keep in mind that as counsel, I can't get involved in that emotion of it that you don't want me emotional on a trial, you want me to be objective and straightforward and to propose the legal remedies that I think are appropriate.

You don't want me as counsel. You don't want to be emotionally involved. I can be sympathetic. I can understand and I can have great empathy for the client. But, you know, my role is counsel for her. My role is pretty straightforward. Marilyn said it was a very difficult time for Asset. And some people even accused her of faking the illness.

Somebody said to me, "Oh, you're just making this up to get sympathy." No.

I think that's what really upset me. And then sometimes when she's at a bus stop or something, she did tell me a couple of times that people would move away from her and say, oh, there's the child killer, you know, that kind of thing. And I mean, because she was very, you couldn't miss her because she was on a scooter and she was a large person and, you know, that type of thing. She stood out and I felt, you know.

In the end, the judge granted defense a judicial stay. There's no finding of guilt or not guilty. It's just stay proceedings means that it's over. But it wasn't over. The prosecution appealed the stay imposed on the second-degree murder charge. The Alberta Court of Appeal panel of three justices heard the case. And the decision was not unanimous.

Nearly eight years after Amina died, Aset Meghamedova was again ordered to stand trial for second-degree murder. But that trial didn't happen. I've got the decision in my hand here from the Alberta Court of Appeal that was released on January the 22nd of 2015, and she died in February, March, three months later. Like the doctor said, she would.

In the weeks that followed the appeal court ruling, Aset Magomedova was very sick. She was in and out of hospital and needed constant care. Her friend Marilyn was there by her side every step of the way. I do remember one time, it was when she was maybe still in the hospital, and she asked me about another lady that had helped

when they first came. I mean, I wasn't the only one. There was other people doing other things. And she asked me about her because she had died of cancer not too long before sex end. And she asked me if Kathy was afraid to die. And I remember that conversation quite vividly because we were coming from different faith backgrounds, but yet, you know, I was trying to give her some comfort.

So she was, I think she was thinking of, you know, her end naturally and so forth. So that's really the last conversation that I really remember having with her when she seemed to be quite lucid and she went into hospice. And she was there maybe two or three days. I was there, I stayed one night with her and her sister all night.

In 2017, 10 years after her death, a fatality inquiry was held into Amina's case.

In Alberta, it's a legal proceeding before a provincial court judge that helps to clarify circumstances of a death. The purpose is not to place blame, but rather to provide insight and recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future. Marilyn Millions testified during that hearing and said she felt there was not enough attention paid to the unique situation this family was in.

Specifically, their PTSD, the fact they were high-risk refugees, as well as the added health issues. She said no one really understood the challenges the Magomedovas faced and said they were allowed to fall through the cracks with the Band-Aid solutions that never addressed their real needs.

The inquiry noted, "Revisions to some protocols were made as a result of a special case review panel, as well as the addition of more extensive support programs and further training to focus on cultural sensitivity and trauma-informed assistance for refugee families like the Magomedovas. No further recommendations were proposed."

Marilyn Millions witnessed a family arrive in Canada with excitement and the hopes of building a better life by leaving behind the violence and danger of a war-torn country. She watched as all of those dreams shattered. One of the lawyers said to me who then Alan had to take over because he was appointed to another position, but he was a very nice man.

And he just shook his head and he said, you know, we're great at bringing these people over. But then he said, we kind of forget about them. We don't keep up, you know. And I think that's very true, you know. And for a while, there's the honeymoon. All people have that honeymoon when they come to something new. And then things start to wear off and there's more issues and all the rest of it. And yeah, I don't think sometimes that we really...

have the wherewithal to deal with these things. Marilyn felt this family, from the very beginning, was trapped in trauma, never able to find a way out. It just kept compounding, like there was never sort of a break to it, you know? I think that's the part that was really...

She seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and then just, you know, circumstances and so forth when she got here and it's just, yeah, it's a very, very sad story and, you know, I think it'll always remain with me. And people who knew her better all liked her and we never held that against her, you know?

And she did make a lot of friends and doctors and some of the nurses and stuff too. They thought she was, you know, exemplary in some ways. Yes, she was in a lot of pain and yes, she did towards the end, you know, it was really hard for her to control her pain and that kind of thing. But yeah, there was something about her. There was that spirit about her that I think really remained pretty well to the end.

Thank you for joining me and letting me share a set and a meanest story with you. Crime Beat is written and produced by me, Nancy Hixt, with producer Dila Velasquez. Audio editing and sound design is by Rob Johnston. Special thanks to photographer-editor Danny Lantella for his work on this episode. And thanks to Chris Bassett, the acting VP of National and Network News for Global News.

I would love to have you tell a friend about this podcast, and you can help me share these important stories by rating and reviewing Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. You can find me on Twitter at Nancy Hixt, on Facebook at Nancy Hixt Crime Beat, and join me on Instagram at nancy.hixt. N-A-N-C-Y dot H-I-X-T. Thanks again for listening. Please join me next time.