The B.C. Coroners Service is re-opening the investigation into Arlene Westervelt's 2016 death.
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April 21, 2022 - 5:10 PM
“It’s been bungled from the get go.”
That was Debbie Hennig’s reaction to the news that the B.C. Coroners Service is going to re-open the investigation into the 2016 drowning death of her sister, Arlene Westervelt.
Westervelt died on June 26, 2016, while out canoeing with her husband, Lambertus Westervelt, in Okanagan Lake, near their Lake Country home. The canoe tipped over and she fell into the water.
He was charged with second degree murder in 2019 but the charges were stayed before he went to court in July 2020.
READ MORE: Charge against Lake Country man accused of killing his wife stayed
“They botched it from the beginning,” Hennig told iNFOnews.ca today, April 21. “More than five members of family and friends called foul play before her body was recovered from the lake. Yet in the coroner’s report, they did not act upon this information. They went ahead and retrieved her body and treated it as an accidental drowning.”
It was only after a lawyer came forward with news that Arlene Westervelt had talked to him about separating from her husband, shortly before her death, that it turned into a murder investigation, Hennig said.
She believes the coroner’s investigation was filled with “secrecy, omissions and errors.”
One of the biggest errors in the investigation, in Hennig’s estimation, is that the autopsy was not performed until July 6, 2016, which was after Westervelt's body was embalmed so vital forensic evidence was destroyed. The body was recovered on June 27 that year.
Hennig also said an RCMP officer, who was a friend of the husband, took Westervelt’s phone, hacked into it and returned it to her husband who deleted some of the content.
Hennig doesn’t believe another coroner with the B.C. service will be objective or transparent.
She’s calling for an out-of-province “anatomical forensic pathologist” with expertise in drowning deaths to review the evidence. She has been insisting on that since the charges were stayed.
READ MORE: 'We need answers:' Family of Lake Country woman protest at Kelowna courthouse
Hennig vows to keep on fighting for that investigation.
“It’s been an uphill battle,” she said. “It’s already been six years and counting but, you know what, I’m getting one step closer.”
The B.C. Coroners Service has confirmed that the investigation will be reopened.
“The chief coroner has determined that it is in the public interest for another coroner to undertake a new investigation to include any new or additional information that may assist the public’s understanding of the circumstances of Arlene Westervelt’s death,” Ryan Panton manager, strategic communications and media relations for the B.C. Coroners Service said in an email to iNFOnews.ca.
But the scope of the investigation may limit it in such a way that some of the concerns Hennig has about the investigation as whole may not be addressed.
“The coroner’s investigation is focused on the facts surrounding the death; specifically, the identity of the deceased and when, where, how and by what means death occurred,” Panton wrote. “Coroners have no authority to assign blame or determine fault but are focused on establishing facts as supported by evidence.”
Find past stories about the Arlene Westervelt case here.
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