No peace for dead girl's mom

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Nicole Daniels

First, she was gossiping on the phone, likely on a chat line with strangers, her mother recalls.

Then her stepfather watched her climb into a truck and take off into the night.

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Nicole Daniels, 16, froze to death near a business on Regent Avenue in April 2009. Her death was ruled an accident but her mother wants to know who gave her the alcohol that contributed to her death. (JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES)

Within 14 hours, the 16-year-old girl was discovered dead in a Transcona snowbank after freezing to death.

She was bruised and had large amounts of alcohol in her system from an unknown source.

Now, the mother of Nicole Daniels says her daughter's death last April should be included in a task force review looking into the unsolved cases of 84 slain and missing women.

However, Nicole's death won't push the task force's caseload to 85 as it's been labelled an accidental death.

On April 1, 2009, Nicole was found face-down in the snow behind an Enterprise car rental outlet on Regent Avenue. A condom was in her jacket pocket, according to an autopsy report.

She had bruises and cuts on her forehead, nose, wrist and finger. She also had a bruise on the left side of her head.

Police initially classified the death as suspicious but now say the case is closed.

"How the hell could she get so drunk?" asked Frances Daniels, Nicole's mother.

She is heartbroken because she has so few answers into how Nicole spent the final hours of her life.

Daniels said she wants to know who gave her underage daughter alcohol and how she ended up in a parking lot about 1.5 kilometres from where the family lives, like someone "kicked her out of the car after they used her."

Daniels said her daughter spent most of her time by herself listening to music in her room, but she sometimes went on a local chat line to make friends.

"She never went out," she said. "She didn't even go out with the girls to the mall and stuff like that. She was in her room."

Once before, she'd returned home drunk, with her pants unbuttoned, boots slipping off and jacket open.

Nicole had struggled with alcohol and drugs, and had previously attempted suicide, said the autopsy report obtained by the Free Press.

Police told the family officers questioned a man who spent part of the evening with Nicole but he was not criminally charged, Daniels said.

"I'm just wondering how she could get so damned juiced that she would fall, pass out, in behind a car place," Daniels said.

Nicole's 17th birthday would have been this Friday.

The autopsy report said Nicole's death was accidental, with hypothermia listed as the primary cause.

The report lists acute alcohol intoxication as a significant contributing factor.

Her mother believes there is someone who knows more about her daughter's death.

"These girls don't do that to themselves, put themselves in a ditch with their face down," she said.

She said police reviewed phone records to find people her daughter spoke to. "They named a number of men, older men, like my age.

"They were in the Transcona area, one was even on Regent, probably married," she said.

Daniels said she believes that man may have taken her daughter to the parking lot to have sex, and then dumped her there.

"There are a bunch of perverts on that chat line that are after young girls, underage girls, especially native girls, is what I think," she said.

Last week, the RCMP and Winnipeg Police Service said the task force has found similarities among 84 cases its investigation has identified.

"The Daniels case was concluded with the death being deemed accidental (and) therefore would not meet the mandate for review by the Missing and Murdered Women Task Force," WPS spokeswoman Const. Jackie Chaput said.

Chaput said accidental deaths do not fall into the review's mandate.

"I am unaware of any future plans to expand it," she said.

But Daniels said the task force needs to focus on cases like that of her daughter.

"Look at all these innocent little girls that are dying," she said.

"There's no one accountable for that at all. Drunk enough to go behind a real dark building that you can't even see without a flashlight and then knock herself out, give herself a bump on the head and a bunch of scrapes on her hands and knees?"

The autopsy report said Nicole's blouse was unbuttoned and her jacket was off when she was discovered in the snowbank.

The report attributes this to "paradoxical undressing," where people suffering from hypothermia begin to remove their clothing.

The autopsy report also noted Daniels may have been under the influence of sedatives.

Last February, 15-year-old Tamara Aller of Dauphin froze to death. Her body was found in a vacant lot next to a Dauphin parking lot, near Highway 20.

But in Aller's case, charges were laid after the RCMP consulted with Manitoba Justice.

In August, Allan Kostur and his wife, Mary-Anne Kostur, were each charged under the Liquor Control Act with permitting drunkenness and providing liquor to a minor.

The autopsy report does not say if Daniels' underwear was collected by the Medical Examiner's Office or by police, though her bra was cut off and placed aside for her family.

Her mother said if her daughter had been wearing underwear it was not returned to the family.

"The last time I seen her she was standing at the door and I asked her to be careful," Daniels said.

"I was worried about her. And then I was looking out the window and it was snowing and I was wondering where she was later that night.''

gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 9, 2010 A3