Case Summary
Photo Credit: CBC
On May 26, 2011, Tammy Bouvette called 911 after finding 19-month-old Iyanna Teeple, whom she was looking after along with two of her four children, face down in the bathtub. Bouvette was trying to resuscitate her when the ambulance arrived, but the little girl “was not breathing and did not have a pulse.”1 Medical staff were briefly able to restore Iyanna’s heartbeat, but she was pronounced brain dead shortly after, and on May 28 was taken off life support.2
Bouvette told first responders that she was giving Iyanna a bath and briefly turned away or stepped out of the room to get shampoo. She said in her police interview that “she only turned away for a few seconds, ‘not even a minute’. When pressed for clarification, [she] said, ‘Sorry, I just, I was trying to figure like, the seconds.”3 She later stated that she left “just for a second” to clean up a spill “really quick.”4 She said she was “not really good about figuring inches out,” but guessed that the bath was around four to five inches deep.5 Bouvette had been diagnosed with borderline intellectual functioning and ADHD, and took special education classes at school.6
Police took a second statement from Bouvette on June 6, 2011, where she reiterated her account of events, and added that one of her children had at times hit Iyanna with toys during play, including on May 26. (Iyanna’s mother also told police that “a few times” she had bruises “from toys.”)7 Two days later, Bouvette gave a third statement that she had stepped out briefly and returned to find Iyanna unconscious. She said that she had drawn the bath after Iyanna fell from a booster seat; she appeared to be uninjured except for “a red mark on her forehead.”8
Finally, on June 14, Bouvette was interviewed for a grueling five hours, including a polygraph test. At first she did not realize that the person conducting the test was a police officer. Bouvette said that she had agreed to the polygraph because “she was told that, ‘everything will be over if I take the test.’”9 When asked “if she understood why she was there, [she] responded, ‘not really’, apologized, and explained that she had a learning disability.”10 During the interrogation, police “posed leading questions and repeatedly expressed their belief that [Bouvette] had caused Iyanna’s death.”11 Ultimately, she changed her estimate of how long she had left Iyanna in the bath, from seconds to “maybe like . . . five minutes.”12 She also told police that she felt claustrophobic and sick, was having trouble breathing, and wanted to end her life.13
Bouvette was charged with second degree murder on October 24, 2011, after the forensic pathologist who performed Iyanna’s autopsy, Dr. Evan Matshes, found that she had bruising on her head that made Bouvette’s “whole story of what happened questionable.”14 He described the bruising as typical of that “seen in child abuse cases” and that there was “no benign explanation” for it.15 Dr. Matshes also found an injury to the inside of Iyanna’s mouth that he viewed as concerning, as it would typically result from blunt force trauma, and would generally be expected to have bled considerably.16 (No evidence of blood was found in Bouvette’s home and first responders did not observe any blood in Iyanna’s mouth.17)
Bouvette was initially released pending her trial, but her bail was revoked for breach of a condition that she not drink alcohol, which was discovered when police were called after she attempted suicide. Bouvette was also charged with assault, robbery, and other breaches of bail conditions during this period.18 She later described her behaviour as largely attributable “to a breakdown . . . of the structure of her life.”19 She lost custody of her children and had “little or no contact with them” after being charged, and having previously struggled with addiction, began using alcohol and drugs again.20 Bouvette spent time in custody intermittently until May 2012, where she remained until her trial. Because she had been charged with killing a child, she served some of this pre-trial detention in protective custody similar to solitary confinement.21
In August 2012, Dr. Matshes testified at the preliminary inquiry held in Bouvette’s case that led to her being committed to stand trial for second degree murder.22 Concerns about Dr. Matshes’ work had emerged, including an opinion from Alberta’s then Chief Medical Examiner that the autopsy findings of “inflicted trauma” were “disturbing and clearly unreasonable.”23 However, the Crown had also received competing opinions from forensic pathologists supporting Dr. Matshes’ position and disagreeing with the Chief Medical Examiner’s critique of it.24
Later that year, the Cranbrook prosecutor’s office received a letter accompanied by over 100 pages of documents from the Alberta Ministry of Justice, regarding “the results of an External Peer Review Committee that was established in Alberta to re-examine the findings of Dr. Matshes, including in the case of Iyanna Teeple.”25 This package included a Peer Review Form stating that though Iyanna’s “case was a ‘very difficult’ one, the opinions reported to have been expressed by Dr. Matshes to the police and Crown counsel [were] ‘not reasonable’.”26 The review panel also “characterized as unreasonable Dr. Matshes’ conclusions with respect to the cause of death (drowning).”27 None of this information was disclosed to defence counsel.28
The panel also expressed concerns about Dr. Matshes’ work in other cases; however, he successfully sought judicial review of the panel’s work on the basis of breach of his rights to procedural fairness, and its report was quashed. A subsequent review found no misconduct by Alberta prosecutors in regards to “the disclosure obligations arising from the issues surrounding Dr. Matshes,” but did not examine the Bouvette case that was prosecuted in British Columbia.29
In March 2013, the prosecutor in Bouvette’s case decided that, for the purpose of a potential plea bargain, “the Crown would only rely on Dr. Matshes’ opinions on factual issues relating to the cause of death (drowning) and the time within which irreversible brain injury results from oxygen deprivation—three to five minutes.”30 Later that month, Bouvette entered into a plea agreement: the Crown would not proceed with the murder charge against her, in exchange for her guilty plea to the lesser offence of criminal negligence causing death.31
In May 2013, Bouvette pled guilty as agreed and was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment.32 Her counsel entered the guilty plea on her behalf and “[n]o plea comprehension inquiry was conducted as required by s. 606(1.1) of the Criminal Code” (to confirm that she understood the proceedings and freely chose to plead guilty).33 A reporter observed that the 29-year-old Bouvette “cried throughout the day-long proceedings, at times with her head in her hands. She wore green sweats and has a tattoo on her neck that reads ‘Mommy’s Angels.’”34
The sentencing judge, Justice Mrozinski, concluded that while Iyanna’s death was a “terrible accident” and not intentional, Bouvette was criminally negligent because a “prudent parent, even suspecting only a small head wound, might have called 9-1-1 or taken [Iyanna] to the hospital to ensure that she was not injured.”35 She found that Bouvette was also criminally negligent in leaving Iyanna “alone . . . in the tub for five minutes.”36
Justice Mrozinski considered Bouvette’s guilty plea a mitigating factor in determining the appropriate sentence, and also found that it was “not controversial” that Bouvette “had a lot on her hands that day. At 28 . . . [she] was already the single mother of four children. She had behind her a history of significant drug and alcohol [addiction]. She . . . was abused as a spouse, and left a tumultuous home at age 15.”37 The judge noted that Bouvette had been diagnosed with ADHD and that “by one account at least, [she] was assessed as having an IQ below 60. Other reports have it at 65, but either way, her IQ is clearly well below average.”38 Justice Mrozinski concluded that Bouvette “was struggling to raise her children in a low-income environment with minimal assistance, some extraordinary cognitive deficits, little or no education, and significant difficulties in controlling her impulses and anger.”39
Long after Bouvette had served her sentence, in January 2020, the B.C. Attorney General appointed special prosecutor Marilyn Sandford “to conduct an independent review of the case.”40 Sandford concluded that a miscarriage of justice had likely occurred. In 2022, Bouvette was granted an extension of time to appeal her conviction, on the basis that material pertaining to the forensic pathology evidence had not been disclosed before she pled guilty, and she might not have chosen to enter the plea had she been aware of it.41
In 2023, the British Columbia Court of Appeal, with Crown consent, admitted this new evidence, including the material communicated to the Cranbrook Crown concerning the external review of Dr. Matshes’ work, and quashed Bouvette’s conviction.42 The court stated that Bouvette’s trial lawyer “appear[ed] to have been aware that Dr. Matshes’ work was being questioned and systematically reviewed in Alberta, but neither he nor [Bouvette] was aware that those concerns extended to the autopsy . . . conducted on Iyanna Teeple.”43 The court found that Bouvette “was also unaware of the results of the external peer review overseen by Alberta Justice, and the possibility that the review could be the source of an alternative opinion refuting the damning one offered by Dr. Matshes, or at least undermining the reliability of the Crown’s key witness.”44
The court emphasized that it had not made “any findings concerning the reliability of the opinions or evidence given by the forensic pathologists,” but rather quashed the conviction due to the Crown’s serious breach of its disclosure obligations.45
In addition to the material pertaining to Dr. Matshes, the Court of Appeal received new evidence concerning Iyanna’s medical history.46 The Crown had disclosed that some weeks before her death, Iyanna had a viral infection in her brain that resolved with treatment.47 Not disclosed, however, were records of her “hospitalization for three days commencing March 20, 2011,” with symptoms including loss of balance, muscle rigidity, and “arching and flopping backwards.”48 Iyanna was “diagnosed with post-viral cerebritis” (brain inflammation), and on discharge still showed some signs of “lack of muscle co-ordination and control.”49 The Court stated that “[w]ith these records in hand, the defence might have explored with their own expert the physiology of post-viral cerebritis and whether it could have played a continuing role on May 26.”50
The Court of Appeal also noted that “[t]he Crown’s contention” at Bouvette’s sentencing hearing that she “left Iyanna alone in the bathroom for three to five minutes must have been based on her fourth statement to the police”—which the Crown had determined to be involuntary, and thus inadmissible in court—or “on Dr. Matshes’ evidence . . . that irreversible brain injury classically occurs in three to five minutes.”51 The court found that it was not clear “that because Iyanna sustained an irreversible brain injury, she must therefore have been left in the bathroom submerged in water for three to five minutes.”52 Rather, she could “have been removed from the bathtub by [Bouvette] but in a state where she continued to be deprived of oxygen.”53
With respect to Bouvette’s guilty plea, the Court of Appeal noted that she was “was facing a charge of second-degree murder and, upon conviction, an automatic life sentence with a minimum parole ineligibility period of 10 years.”54 Bouvette, “the mother of four young children . . . was facing the loss of her liberty for a substantial period of time, the stigma associated with a murder conviction, and the loss of her relationships with her children.”55 The court observed that “[a]gainst this background, the Crown held out a powerful inducement: a guilty plea to a lesser charge and the certainty of a much-reduced sentence.”56 The court did not find it “difficult to imagine why, unarmed with critical information that could assist her, this marginalized, overwhelmed and intellectually challenged [person] would enter a guilty plea.”57
The Court of Appeal concluded that there was a reasonable possibility that Bouvette would not have pleaded guilty had the undisclosed evidence been available to her, and that the guilty plea conviction was a miscarriage of justice.58 The Court referred to Bouvette’s sworn statement that:
I did not believe I was responsible for lyanna’s death. However, [defence counsel] told me I should take the plea offer. He said the likely outcome at trial would be a conviction for second degree murder because of Dr. Matshes’ expert opinion. I understood [he] would be giving evidence that I had caused lyanna’s death.59
Bouvette stated: “I felt like I had no choice but to plead guilty. I wanted to get out of jail and I was facing 25 years.”60 Had she “been advised of the non-disclosed materials” and that “Dr. Matshes’ opinions [were] the subject of considerable expert criticism, including his opinion in lyanna’s case,” then she “would not have accepted the plea bargain.”61
Both Bouvette and the Crown, represented by the special prosecutor, requested that the Court of Appeal enter an acquittal.62 The court, however, declined to do so on the following basis: “accepting for the purposes of this analysis that a jury could not reasonably find any of Iyanna’s injuries to have been inflicted by” Bouvette, it could still “conclude that knowingly leaving an injured 19-month-old child unattended in a bathtub for as long as a minute constitutes a marked and substantial departure” from a reasonable person’s conduct.63 The court found that “it cannot be said that no jury . . . could convict [her] of criminal negligence causing death.”64
The Court of Appeal instead entered a permanent stay, or stop, of the proceedings on the basis of the profound harm that the miscarriage of justice caused to Bouvette.65 The Court explained that since her release, “she has struggled with addiction issues, homelessness, poverty, social isolation, and physical and mental health challenges.”66 In prison, “she was assaulted because she was perceived to be a ‘baby killer’, and moved to segregation. . . . She attempted suicide on several occasions.”67 Bouvette’s children were “harassed and bullied at school because their mother [had] been found to be criminally responsible for the death of a child.”68
Bouvette’s counsel could not reach her before this judgment was released because she was unhoused.69 Currently, her lawyer and the special prosecutor are seeking leave from the Supreme Court of Canada to challenge the Court of Appeal’s decision to stay the proceedings.70
This case has been included in the Registry because, while the Court of Appeal did not acquit Bouvette, it received new evidence that was not before the trial court, and a number of indicia of wrongful convictions were present including non-disclosure and disputed forensic evidence.71