Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A 20-year-old woman who was found dead inside a cabin off of Highway 3 near Yellowknife last spring died as a result of drugs and alcohol overdose, says the NWT's chief coroner.

Twenty-year-old Jessica Koe, born Jessica Jerome, was found dead in a cabin outside of Yellowknife on May 13. The NWT coroner's office has ruled that the cause of death was acute ethanol and drug poisoning. - photo courtesy of Facebook

As was previously reported in Yellowknifer, Jessica Koe - born Jessica Jerome - had been out duck hunting with a friend the morning of May 13. They then returned to a cabin along the Ingraham Trail for a nap, but Koe never woke up.

The cause of Koe's death was unclear at the time. However, a toxicity report conducted as part of a full coroner's inquest into the death has determined that Koe died of a lethal mix of alcohol, morphine and cocaine.

"Her cause of death is acute ethanol and drug toxicity," said Kathy Menard, chief coroner for the NWT. "On their own - like, if she had just had the alcohol on its own - it wouldn't have been enough to kill her, but the combined effects of all those three drugs put together caused the toxicity and her death," said Menard.

Menard declined to give the exact amounts of the specific drugs in Koe's system, saying that it would be against the wishes of the family. However, the amount of morphine, specifically, was much higher than the amount of the drug that would normally be administered to medical patients with low tolerance, she said.

The death of this young woman should open all residents' eyes to the danger of mixing drugs and alcohol, as well the prevalence and dangers of substance abuse in the territory, said Menard.

"The combined effects, when you're taking drugs and mixing them with alcohol, I don't know that people realize what they can be - the toxicity level it could be causing," said Menard.

"Drugs and alcohol in the NWT, we see alcohol and drugs often as contributing factors in death. We see them in high numbers in our accidental deaths, in our suicide deaths and our homicides. We even see them in our natural deaths, we find alcohol in the system."

Between 2001 and 2010 in the NWT, 49 per cent of suicide deaths were drug- and alcohol-related. Drugs were present in 57 per cent of accidental deaths during that same time period, and more than three-quarters of all homicides recorded in that time involved drugs or alcohol as contributing factors, said Menard.

"I think when you look at the statistics, there's proof that more work is needed to raise awareness of the dangers of alcohol and drugs and mixing them together," she said.

The final coroner's report had not been finished at press time, said Menard.

Normally, the coroner's office does not release information prior to the full coroner's report being issued, but exceptions were made in this case because of the high degree of public interest in the case, she said.

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.