Found at bottom of laundry chute: Police to meet with dead Regina woman’s family

REGINA — The family of a woman found fatally injured at the bottom of a laundry chute is to meet with the Regina Police Service next week to discuss an RCMP review of her death.

Nadine Machiskinic, who was 29, was found at the bottom of the chute in Regina’s Delta Hotel in January 2015 and died in hospital.

The coroner initially ruled the cause of her death could not be determined, but later changed it to accidental.

A jury at a coroner’s inquest last year changed the ruling back to undetermined, so Regina police asked the RCMP to look into the death.

The family has always questioned how Machiskinic could have fit or climbed into the laundry chute on her own, and has voiced concern about the police investigation.

Regina police Chief Evan Bray says he will present the review’s findings to the family and go over some of its recommendations.

“It really spoke about how we manage major cases, predominantly ones that are not necessarily major crime investigations … but end up being a serious or major crime investigation,” Bray said Wednesday.

The review’s findings look at changes in accountability, timeline management and communication, he said.

“There were some delays in the investigation which came out through the coroner’s inquest,” he said. “Those we have never hidden behind. Those were … definitely time lapses that shouldn’t have happened.”

An autopsy report said Machiskinic, a mother of four, died of blunt force trauma to the head, neck and trunk consistent with a fall. Blood tests showed she had alcohol and a mix of methadone and three other drugs in her system, as well as high levels of sleeping medication.

The inquest heard it took police more than a year before they started looking for two men shown on surveillance video getting onto an elevator with someone who appeared to be Machiskinic. It took police 60 hours to begin their initial investigation.

Bray said he will publicly share the review’s findings once he has had a chance to meet with Machiskinic’s family.

(CTV Regina, The Canadian Press)

The Canadian Press