Kimberly Rogers Inquest Alerts

Woman felt ill day she died, inquest told
Was afraid of going to jail if she left her house


by Kate Harries
Ontario Reporter
The Toronto Star
November 6, 2002 – 12:31 EDT

SUDBURY — On the last day she was seen alive, a pregnant woman who died while under house arrest was feeling unwell and anxious about her own health and that of her unborn baby, an inquest into her death heard yesterday.

But Kimberly Rogers, who was serving a house-arrest sentence for welfare fraud, refused to leave her apartment to visit a walk-in medical clinic, a volunteer with a pro-life group testified.

Yvonne Cholette, the volunteer director of Birthright, said she visited Rogers on Aug. 6, 2001, the last day she was seen alive.

It was the Monday of the civic holiday weekend, Cholette recalled, and Rogers was in the eighth month of her pregnancy.

Rogers was concerned because she had not had a bowel movement for three days and asked Cholette to feel her stomach.

"Her abdomen was very hard, she had a migraine headache, she was very hot and sweaty."

Cholette offered to take Rogers to see a doctor, but she refused because the terms of her conditional sentence allowed her to leave her apartment only on Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to noon, except for medical and religious reasons or as allowed by her sentence supervisor.

Rogers believed the medical exception only applied to scheduled appointments with her family doctor, Cholette said.

"She was sure that there was no way she could come to the clinic. She was concerned that if we were found outside her apartment she would go straight to jail and have no contact with the baby," Cholette said.

Rogers also refused to go outside for fresh air and exercise, believing she was confined to the limits of her apartment, Cholette said.

Rogers' body was found Aug. 9 in an advanced state of decomposition, with a lethal dose of anti-depressants in her blood. One of the issues to be decided by the jury is whether her death was accidental or a suicide.