No reason to fear for Korchinski-Paquet’s safety until she went onto balcony: cop

TORONTO – There was no reason to fear for Regis Korchinski-Paquet’s safety until she suddenly walked out onto her 24th-floor apartment’s balcony, a Toronto police officer told an inquest into the 29-year-old woman’s death Monday.

Const. Shane Beaudoin said he had allowed Korchinski-Paquet to go into her home because she needed to use the bathroom, and asked her to talk to a paramedic when she emerged because he thought it could help de-escalate what remained a heated family dispute.

Instead, he said, Korchinski-Paquet went out onto the balcony, knocking down the air conditioning unit on the way, then used her bodyweight to block the door.

“At this point, it’s the first time to me that the balcony has come into play. She’s made no references to it. She’s not made any sort of remarks that she’s suicidal or that she wants to hurt herself,” Beaudoin testified.

“There’s been no reason to fear for her physical safety because at this point there’s officers on scene, everybody’s separated … So anyway, now she’s on the balcony and now I am very concerned.”

Moments later, Korchinski-Paquet let go of the door and headed to the balcony rail, swinging her left leg toward the neighbouring balcony, he said.

As she disappeared from view, the officer said he believed she had crossed over to the other balcony, so he requested that the emergency task force be called in.

“At that moment, I didn’t know that she had fallen. I thought she had gone over to the neighbour’s unit and was maybe hunkered down on that balcony.”

It was only after he’d left the apartment to go knock on the neighbour’s door that Beaudoin heard from another officer that Korchinski-Paquet had fallen, he said, at 5:43 p.m. 

“That information came to basically everybody in the hallway at the same time,” including Korchinski-Paquet’s mother and brother, he said.

Five calls were made to 911 the afternoon of May 27, 2020, three of them by Korchinski-Paquet, the inquest heard last week. 

Jurors have previously watched a compilation video combining the recordings of the calls and two police microphones with CCTV footage from the hallway outside her home and video from a police cruiser.

In her calls, Korchinski-Paquet expressed difficulty breathing and said she had thrown two bottles at her family in the hallway because she lost control after being attacked by her mother and brother. When asked if anyone had mental health issues, Korchinski-Paquet said she had epilepsy.

Her mother and brother also mentioned Korchinski-Paquet’s epilepsy on their calls, noting that she was often agitated after her seizures. Her brother, Reece Korchinski, said she assaulted him with knives after a dispute over the TV volume.

Six police officers and two paramedics responded to the calls, the inquest heard.

Then-Const. Adam Vandenbrink testified Monday that he was the first officer to arrive at the scene and was told to wait for backup. He didn’t know Beaudoin, who arrived shortly afterward, because the officer worked in another division, he said.

They went up together and could hear an argument as the elevator approached the 24th floor, he said. Neither he nor Beaudoin could recall discussing a strategy to deal with the situation, but Vandenbrink said all officers had received the same training on de-escalation.

Vandenbrink said he ended up talking to Korchinski-Paquet while Beaudoin went down the hall to speak to her mother and brother. He could smell wine and saw smashed glass in the hallway, he said.

“She wasn’t listening to my questions, she was yelling over top of me,” said Vandenbrink, who left the force roughly three years ago. He described Korchinski-Paquet as “agitated” and “aggressive.”

When another officer arrived, Vandenbrink said he asked his colleague to speak to her while he went to debrief with Beaudoin. It was during that conversation that he heard about Korchinski-Paquet’s seizures that day, as well as a general idea of what prompted the 911 calls, he said. 

He had just stepped into the door frame of the apartment to make room for paramedics when Korchinski-Paquet ran out to the balcony, he said. The fallen air conditioner partially blocked the balcony door, preventing it from opening fully, and Korchinski-Paquet had to squeeze through the opening, he added.

Within seconds, she had stepped over the railing, and Vandenbrink said he could see her hands gripping it like someone hanging from a bar at the gym as she appeared to shimmy toward the balcony next door.

He believed Korchinski-Paquet was making her way to the other balcony, and another officer told them to leave the apartment to avoid agitating her further, he said.

Eventually, as officers knocked on the neighbour’s door, Vandenbrink and Const. Glenn Weddell went back into the apartment to try to see Korchinski-Paquet, he said. Weddell slowly inched toward the balcony, eventually poking his head out the door, but still couldn’t spot her, he said.

“I remember him just taking like half a step out onto the balcony, just enough to look over the edge and he says, ‘She fell,'” Vandenbrink said. 

“And then it didn’t even register to me at that time … I probably went right into a state of shock, didn’t really realize what was happening.”

Rushing to get outside, he shared the news with those in the hall and heard Korchinski-Paquet’s mother “start to wail,” he said.

By the time he got outside, paramedics had covered Korchinski-Paquet’s body with a blanket, he said.

Vandenbrink and Beaudoin both testified that they never set foot on the balcony, nor did they know at the time about postictal delirium, an altered mental state that can follow seizures.

Answering questions from the presiding coroner, Vandenbrink said he did not perceive Korchinski-Paquet as a person in crisis at the time, but may have classified her as such if he’d known seizures could lead to delirium.

An agreed narrative read at the inquest last week said Korchinski-Paquet had a history of seizures from epilepsy and often experienced confusion, “physically and verbally abusive behaviour,” and temporary amnesia afterward.

A neurologist who did not treat her but examined her records testified that Korchinski-Paquet on several occasions showed symptoms in keeping with postictal delirium or postictal psychosis.

Dr. Julien Hébert told the inquest that it would be “nearly impossible” to tell whether someone was acting aggressively due to delirium or psychosis after an epilepsy seizure or for some other reason without knowing their medical history.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 19, 2026.