Kimberly Rogers Inquest Alerts

Woman not suicidal, boyfriend testifies
by Keith Lacey
Special to The Globe and Mail

Saturday, October 19, 2002 – Print Edition, Page A27

SUDBURY, ONT. -- The boyfriend of a pregnant woman found dead of a drug overdose in the Sudbury apartment where she was under house arrest says she was anxious to have her baby and in good spirits in the days before she died.

Terry Pyhtila, who found Kimberly Rogers' decomposing body in the sweltering apartment in August, 2001, told a coroner's jury yesterday that she exhibited no suicidal tendencies the last few times he talked to her.

"She was looking forward to the baby. She had just got some baby books," he told coroner's counsel Al O'Marra.

Ms. Rogers died after she was sentenced to six months of house arrest for committing welfare fraud by collecting benefits while she had student loans. Critics of Ontario's Conservative government have attributed her death to the imposition of strict new penalties for welfare cheats.

But Mr. Pyhtila said Ms. Rogers, who graduated near the top of her class in a college social-work program in May, 2000, was handling her sentence with dignity, talking proudly about becoming a mother and displaying no signs of acute depression or suicidal thoughts.

When asked directly if she displayed any inclination toward taking her own life, Mr. Pyhtila responded "nothing at all."

But he conceded that she had entertained previous thoughts of suicide. In 1996, when they first started dating, Ms. Rogers phoned him one night and said she had ingested many sleeping pills. He went to her apartment, stayed with her for a few hours, and said she seemed fine.

In the days after her conviction, Ms. Rogers once complained to him about her house arrest. "She said, 'If I wasn't here, I wouldn't have any problems,' but in the next sentence she said she wasn't going to do anything," he said.

He took her comments as a joke and she never made a similar comment again, he said.

The inquest has already heard that Ms. Rogers, who was more than eight months pregnant, suffered from chronic depression and from migraine headaches, panic attacks, insomnia and pain.

But she was relieved that she received a conditional sentence of house arrest as opposed to being sent to jail, Mr. Pyhtila testified.

"She seemed to be quite relieved once the actual sentencing was done," he said. "She told me she didn't want to go to jail."

The inquest has heard that Ms. Rogers likely died on Aug. 6 or Aug. 7 from an overdose of amitriptyline, prescription medication she used to control depression and the headaches.

The last time he saw her on Aug. 6, Ms. Rogers wasn't unhappy or depressed, he said: "She didn't sound any different than she had on any other day."

She phoned him later that evening and asked him to pick up some Tylenol, but his parents were coming in from out of town and he told her he didn't have time, he testified.

He phoned repeatedly Aug. 7, but got no answer, which wasn't unusual because she often unplugged her phone, he said.

He decided to stop by the evening of Aug. 9 and opened her apartment door with his own key. It was then that he found the body.

The inquest, expected to last four more weeks, resumes Monday.