Scattered Episode 22: Evidence in Canadian Courts & the OCME Practicum – Interview with Dr. Janne Holmgren

A couple episodes ago, I talked to Alisa Hardy and Taylor Dube-Mather about their experiences doing a practicum at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) in Alberta. In this episode, I talked to their supervisor at the time of this practicum, Dr. Janne Holmgren. Janne has been a professor at Mount Royal University for 23 years and teaches in the Department of Economics, Justice and Policy Studies. She coordinates a practicum program for students to gain exposure working with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. She also does research in how jurors perceive evidence, and how new technologies can be used as forensic evidence.

In this episode we talk about:

• Janne’s initial interest in forensics and how the the OJ Simpson case played a part. Her research examined issues around independent testing and expert witnesses.
• how she identified issues with defense lawyers’ understanding of DNA evidence and biases in how cases were presented
• her PhD and how it involved conducting a mock trial with real legal professionals to study juror decision-making, and how they understood complex expert testimony
• her current research with new technologies, like CCTV evidence and cell phone tracking, and their use in investigations and trials
• the practicum at the OCME, which provides hands-on learning for students. She also talks about extensive screening process that each prospective student must go through due to the graphic nature of the work and confidentiality requirements
• the support for students during the practicum, including gradual exposure, extensive dialogue with Dr. Holmgren, peer support from past students, and counselling resources to process experiences
• the differing reactions to the program by different students
• her passion about recognizing the crucial public service provided by medical examiner offices and their personnel, and hopes to educate others on their important role through her research

The program at Mount Royal University is a Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice and you can find out more here: https://www.mtroyal.ca/ProgramsCourses/FacultiesSchoolsCentres/Arts/Departments/EconomicsJusticePolicyStudies/DegreePrograms/BachelorofArts-CriminalJustice/index.htm

The OCME practicum is coordinated by Dr. Janne Holmgren. You can view her profile here: https://www.mtroyal.ca/ProgramsCourses/FacultiesSchoolsCentres/Arts/Departments/EconomicsJusticePolicyStudies/Faculty/JanneHolmgren.htm

You can find out more about the Sara Baillie and Taliyah Marsman case here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/edward-downey-murder-baillie-taliyah-appeal-1.5994491

You can find out more about the Guy Paul Morin case here: https://www.innocencecanada.com/exonerations/guy-paul-morin/

Robert Jensen’s book, Personal Effects, is available through most major retailers: Amazon, Indigo (and it appears to be on sale thru Indigo right now!). His website is: https://robertajensen.com/

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Transcript

Janne Holmgren: I’m Dr. Janne Holmgren. I’m a full professor at Mount Royal University in the Department of Economics, Justice and Policy Studies. I’ve been at MRU for 23 years.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Wow, you’re one of the old folks here.

Janne Holmgren: I know. Scary. I feel so old.  

Yvonne Kjorlien: you’ve seen it evolve — the institution evolve from its college days to, it’s now university days.

Janne Holmgren: Yeah, from the diploma program to the applied program to the bachelor’s program.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Yeah.

Janne Holmgren: Yeah, so I’ve kind of been around the block.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Right. And so you came to my attention mostly because I just did a podcast episode with Alisa and Taylor who went through, I guess at least one of your classes but the medical examiner’s internship that you coordinate so that they could get a practicum And do some work and get some exposure with what goes on at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. So, that’s kind of how you came to my attention. But you do way much more than that. So can you kind of give a  — how did you come to be at Mount Royal and doing the research are that you’re currently — if you’re doing any research now — what kind of brought you to that point? So kind of give us a sketch of your journey up to now.

Janne Holmgren: I became very interested in DNA evidence around the OJ Simpson trial. Where, it was clear to me that, DNA was going to become a big part, of that. And at that time there’s really nobody in Canada that was doing critical analysis examination of the evidence. So I was really interested in the impact on trials where you have something so novel like DNA that people can’t really see, they can’t really understand, how that ends up, playing out within the courtroom. So I focused my master’s degree on that kind of work whereby, I interviewed defense lawyers throughout Canada.

And I asked a question: what are the implications for your trials? What are you gonna do with this? How are you gonna play with this? And it became really clear to me that the system that we had in place in Canada because we don’t really have independent laboratories, that the access to — for example, a retest of biological samples were really hard to get hold of. So yeah, I know of a few cases in Canada, where, you think back to the Guy Paul Morin and case where the defense, wanted to retest the sample, but to retest the sample in Canada, they would have had to go through the Center of Forensic Sciences in Ontario or, through the RCMP and they didn’t want to do that, because the samples had already been examined in the laboratory in Canada. So they had to go down to the US, I think it was Boston, to get the sample, reevaluated. And it became clear that it was not his DNA that was part of that sample. So, that’s a long, long story and we know now that, it was a completely different individual that was responsible for the death of nine year old Christine Jessup, I think it was in 1994.

So the playing field within the criminal justice system, it was really clear to me that it was not balanced, the scales of justice was really tilted. In addition to that, any kind of expert testimony that we saw in the Court in the early days of DNA evidence was usually presented by people that worked in the laboratories – again, in the Center of Forensic Sciences and the RCMP laboratories — and we really didn’t have Council in Canada that could really contest what it was that they were doing, of what they were presenting within the courtroom.

So in some cases, they would have had to get an independent expert from the UK, Australia or the US, which usually cost, a lot of money. And because they didn’t really understand DNA evidence, the defense lawyers didn’t really understand DNA evidence, they didn’t really know how to extract the information within the courtroom, ask the right questions. I learned that there was a real need for an independent expert that was not affiliated with the police, or a particular laboratory. So in the early days of my work even as a master student, I was asked to help out defense lawyers understand, how DNA works and whether or not I could help them launch defenses for their clients or what questions to ask, about the actual evidence, which was enormously interesting. So that kind of grew my passion about DNA evidence.

There wasn’t really anywhere in Canada either where I could really get trained. The RCMP is doing all the training in Canada, and I have been incredibly fortunate to attend different courses that the RCMP has put on — in forensic interviewing, for example — which is the other passion of mine. But I kind of pushed my way into courses in the US. I took DNA statistical courses with the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Where I met many people that were being trained, for the FBI and so forth and other Canadian officers, detectives, and what have you? So I had to kind of figure out how to kind of get that information on my own.

That led to my PhD where I tried something unique. Given that we cannot interview jurors in Canada, I decided to set up a mock trial and I was privileged to get the go-ahead from the Court of Queens Bench in Calgary to actually have a courtroom, and I actually had a real judge, and I had real experts, DNA experts, and I had a real defense lawyers and had real Crown prosecutors participating in my so-called mock trial, which was actually a real trial whereby I changed everything that was identifying about that trial.  We ran this trial in front of a jury. It was completely scripted. So, it was a massive script that they all played to. And it was video recorded with seven different cameras. And then after that, I interviewed the jurors about the evidence. I learned very quickly what it was that they’re fixated within the trial. And one of the major findings that I found was that it almost didn’t matter what evidence was part of the trial. When the expert would actually come forth and give these statistical numbers or the probabilities statistics of the likelihood that this DNA belonging to anyone other than their accused is one in a trillion — that’s really all that they needed to hear. And with that, they would find easily a finding of guilt on the basis of that, even alone, which is hugely problematic. Then they were fixated on all sorts of other things which were really, really funny: the clothing of council, the hairstyles of council, …

Yvonne Kjorlien: I’ve heard that, yeah.

Janne Holmgren: … whether or they had access to water, notebooks. At that time, when I ran this mock trial, it was not the norm that jurors were granted notebooks with information. That’s changed since then. But certainly, one of the issues that came out of my work, was that jurors really needed to be able to ask questions.

I argued in my PhD that really the courtroom is not all that different than on academic classroom. When you have people that are unfamiliar with biology, chemistry, physics, anything like that, and they have bombarded with all this kind of information, and they are dissuaded from taking notes, and they’re dissuaded from taking notes by counsel, for example, saying things like “Look at me”, “Listen to counsel”, “Your job is to pay attention.” And that actually ended up being perceived by the jurors as, “Okay, I’m really allowed to ask I’m not really allowed to write notes. I’m supposed to watch.”

And then council would say things like, “It is my job to ask the questions, not your job to ask the questions, but for you to listen,” which is very interesting. I correlated that with the classroom. This experience in the classroom, students need to be able to ask questions, like “What is this?”, “What is this DNA?”, “How does that work?”

My jurors had a really difficult time understanding that DNA can be extracted from anything in the body. In those early days they thought that blood had to be matched with blood and couldn’t really understand how could you extract DNA from dental pulp, for example. That was really, really difficult for them and difficult for defense lawyers too. We’re trying at that time to not get those statistical numbers to be presented within the courtroom, because they learned very quickly that it had way more of an influence than it probably ought to have had.

Yvonne Kjorlien: I can very much see your perspective that a courtroom is much like a classroom because you’re asking the jurors to make a decision based on what they’re presented, but they have to understand it. So in essence, they need to learn what’s going on. And so in order to learn, you need to be able to ask questions. Because if something is unclear to you, you can’t critically analyze it to make a decision. I can totally understand that. Yeah.

Janne Holmgren: And those other issues that was really apparent. In me interviewing lawyers and judges their perception of the jury, and this idea that jurors, they really don’t ask good questions. They really shouldn’t be allowed to ask questions because they ask ridiculous questions that are totally irrelevant. But for my standpoint as an educator, to me it scared me to think that we wanted the presentation, of a jury that didn’t really understand, was actually kind of okay, with it.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Yeah, it’s more than kind of scary. That’s very scary. Very scary.

Janne Holmgren: Based on that research, I was like, there probably is a really good argument for professional jurors. We see in some countries very well educated juror on the issues that are at play because it’s well known that.. and that was a really scary part that I learned when I interviewed defense lawyers for my masters — which was all I did for my Master’s degree, which I completed out of Simon Fraser University — was that if a defense lawyer did not understand the DNA evidence and the accused had a rap sheet of prior convictions, defense lawyers were more likely to encourage a plea. Because they were just so uncomfortable with this idea of having to contest the DNA evidence, which they really didn’t understand. Now the landscape for all of this that we’re talking about today is very different today.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Right. Yeah.

Janne Holmgren: But the one issue that remains to this day and something that we see from time to time is that we learn that an expert who provided evidence many, many years ago, might have not completed all the testing of the samples, for example, and have gone into the courtroom just on the basis that they are an expert, a so-called expert, and have provided evidence, on their so- called expertise without really having done the work. And we saw that in the case of the pathologist, Charles Smith, the child pathologist. Who, in fact, in many of the instances that he had testified in, or in the many cases that he testified, he had not actually even completed all that work. And we had families, who’s families’ members, were convicted of murder of their children went off to jail, convicted. There are other children ceased, put into foster care, and so forth. And then since learned that his evidence was, in fact, incorrect and malicious.

Yvonne Kjorlien: So it’s my understanding, there’s a bit of a process at least, in the US to become an expert, be considered an expert witness There is a legal process. Is there a process in Canada?

Janne Holmgren: Yeah. The courtroom needs to conduct an interview of the individual that comes forth with the evidence, and then they decide whether or not that person should be considered an expert. And their questions, about all their work. So for example, in the case of a pathologist, “how many cases have done?”, and so forth. But once you are deemed that expert, nobody really questions anything really about you, which is problematic in some of these cases

Yvonne Kjorlien: Okay. So, it sounds kind of like with the DNA evidence that pretty much anything presented in court, whether it’s an expert witness, whether it’s the DNA evidence, some other evidence, it has to always be open to contest. Always be open to questions. Is that correct?

Janne Holmgren: Yes. I mean the main question that I always present — and I teach this to my students and my forensics courses too — is that we still need to answer the question. “How did it get there?”

Yvonne Kjorlien: Mmm.

Janne Holmgren: We’ve seen some interesting ways that DNA ends up at certain scenes whereby, maybe the individual wasn’t even there. We know that individuals who are working the criminal element are getting more and more sophisticated. One of the issues that we’re dealing with — I’m sure it’s this way in many jurisdictions, but a bit of a trend that we’ve seen locally — is that different vehicles are used by individuals engaging in criminal activities, and then shortly thereafter, we find the vehicle burned out. Why does that happen? That is to conceal the evidence. So that’s problematic for us, of course. Very difficult for us to collect any evidence in those kinds of situations, other than we are still able to identify the vehicle. But in many instances, we might not be able to know the exact color, you might not be able to get the ID of the actual vehicle. So the people that are working in the criminal element, as I call it, they’re getting, more and more sophisticated.

Now there is one part, that’s incredibly interesting. And that’s some of the research that I’m working on currently: is the evidence that we end up collecting from, for example, CCTV and security cameras. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to get away with not being seen, because of these kinds of cameras, just about everywhere. And so the work that I’m working on right now, which is interesting, is I look at the evidence that we’re able to collect, which is, fairly secure evidence — we can play that in court, and that works beautifully in many instances whereby, we don’t actually really need a very tough interrogation in many instances. In many instances, we — and I’ve seen this, through some of the training that I’ve done with the RCMP — we can just play back the video in front of the alleged accused and observe their reaction to that actual video. It’s like, “Here you go. Can you explain to us what’s going on in this video?” And oftentimes the individuals like, “Oh, shoot. That is clearly me. Now I’m gonna have to figure out some sort of an explanation as to what’s going on in the picture,” which is difficult to explain away. If you see someone, pointing a gun, you see the gun, and you see clearly the individual. So that has an advantage in the collection of evidence.

Before, for example, the police — the same goes for, some of the cases that we see at the OCME, where we have an individual that died by falling in front of the train. We have CCTV. Did that individual get pushed from the platform into the train or did they jump? So that’s very, very good evidence.

Now the other piece that I’m working on right now, and that is something that I have invited Alisa (who was one of the students at the OCME to partake in) is what happens to the responders, the collectors of the evidence, the people that are looking at the video, what happens to them? How does it impact them emotionally? Like the vicarious trauma.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Oh, that’s big.

Janne Holmgren: So, you are watching these live events, and it creates the sense of helplessness, and you can imagine. And we see that evidence sometimes could be something — I’m not talking about a specific case because I can’t talk about a specific case — but you can only imagine, a person who is actively dying from fentanyl overdose. There’s cameras behind a building, let’s say at anywhere in Calgary, anywhere. And people walk by and you can see on the video, people are walking by nobody’s tapping this person, then you see them seizing and then they die. And then you watch this. You have this incredible sense of why isn’t anybody stopping? “Stop, stop, and get a kit” or call 911 to save this person. Or, a suicide, an act of suicide, right?

Yvonne Kjorlien: Yeah.

Janne Holmgren: Where you can actually see the face of the individual contemplating: I should kill myself, or shouldn’t I kill myself. And then it’s on video, that do this. So the evidence is really great. At the impact on those that have to watch it is horrific. The other thing that I worry about is social media, getting hold of anything that’s live.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Oh, yeah.

Janne Holmgren: And that being shared, right? You’ve seen many instances of cases where there’s misinformation in criminal cases, and once that information’s been shared on multiple platforms, it can end up really hurting families. We saw that in the case of the mom and daughter that was murdered in Calgary a number of years ago: Sara Baillie and her five year old daughter, Taliyah Marsman. I don’t know if you remember in the early days, there was some suggestion that Sara Baillie was working in the sex trade and… so that was shown on Twitter, that information was on Facebook, and then we learned later on that the likelihood or the reason or the rationale behind a murder seemed to have been more linked to her trying to help a friend getting out of the sex trade.

Yvonne Kjorlien: I did hear that. Yes.

Janne Holmgren: Which is a very, very different story.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Very different.

Janne Holmgren: And then her family is trying to clear her name, and trying to explain through the media to people that this was not the case at all, which is hugely damaging.

Yvonne Kjorlien: It’s very interesting how easily we can condemn somebody by just that one presumption: she’s working in the sex trade. Well, she must be guilty of everything then.

Janne Holmgren: Yeah.

Yvonne Kjorlien: And then suddenly it flips 180. No, no. She was actually helping somebody trying to get out of the sex trade and that’s why she was killed. Ooo, that changes everything. So, yeah, it really brings to light our own biases, and how we can be so easily influenced by so little on social media or anything really, and it’s all just gossip.

Janne Holmgren: Yeah, yeah. I mean there’s that. So my main research focus now is still on forensics.  I’m still following all the changes to DNA evidence. We’re seeing now that there’s a lot more work related to touch DNA, how much DNA we believe behind. And there’s a lot more work, in the area producing technology that can read DNA very, very quickly. So that in the future — and that is actually happening in some places in the world  — where we can bring the equipment to the crime scene or to a natural disaster, and identify samples, very very quickly. So that’s very interesting. But I’m also a hugely interested in all the other technologies that we are using and we are relying on, like CCTV. And cell phone towers have really changed the landscape too, and was a big part of the Sara Baillie trial, as well because we’re able to find that the perpetrator cell phone had been in all these different places, by linking, the pings, and so forth. So in that trial it was very much about, “Can you explain to us how your cell phone was here, how your cell phone was there,” and all that kind of thing. So yeah.

Yvonne Kjorlien: And from what I understand too the accuracy is getting better and better especially with cell phone locations.

Janne Holmgren: Yes. Yeah.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Yeah, because yeah, from what I understood, even five years ago, it wasn’t great. The triangulation was so-so, so being able to actually place somebody at a specific location at a specific time wasn’t quite possible. I mean, it was almost there, but we’re getting pretty close now, from what I understand.

Janne Holmgren: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s very good, it’s very good. But, then we’re still dealing with the people that are trying to outsmart the evidence. We’ve got burner phones, like burner phones we end up, apprehending somebody and they’re in possession of 40 phones, so every time they make a phone call they get rid of it. So we still have to find ways.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Right.

Janne Holmgren: And that takes a lot of money, a lot of resources. But it’s clear that we have a lot of work to do, there’s a huge need just thinking about the loss of life in Lahaina in Hawaii. The identification of all those people, they lack resources in many parts the world. My understanding is that the OCME or at the Coroner’s office in Lahaina, they have no capacity to identify all of those individuals. I just read this morning that they have enlisted help of forensic experts, who sifted through evidence on the site of 9/11. So it’s massive amount of work and sadly — just like, which was the case with 9/11 too — some of those bodies will never be found.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Yeah, yeah. That’s the thing with those disasters is that nobody is prepared for it, but they seem to be happening more and more. And there needs to be resources out there that we can call upon. I recently read a book: it’s called Personal Effects. And he runs a company that specializes…. Robert Jensen. There we go. Robert Jensen. The book is Personal Effects. And he runs the company that specializes in going in and helping with these disasters, whether they be natural or man-made and just helping to coordinate and sort through and deal with everything, from identification of the people to what happened, and trying to figure that out. Because, yeah, they’re huge undertakings and it’s just utter chaos until you can try to get a handle on things.

Janne Holmgren: That’s one of the reasons that I wanted to establish this partnership with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, because our program, Justice Studies, really, didn’t have initially a forensic focus and certainly our students did not have a lot of exposure to death investigation as a result. I’m not meaning that every criminal justice program needs to be focusing on death investigation. We are an academic institution, but if we can bridge that experience for the student, the exposure for the student, I think that’s a win-win. The OCME and Calgary finds our students incredibly valuable to them and time and time again… we’ve had three or four of them hired coming out of our degree program, which is unheard of. Students coming out with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and then they end up working as death investigators and autopsy technicians full time. So still that’s something that hugely I’m invested in, hugely proud of, and the students that get that opportunity, I’m so proud of them, and the relationship that I’m able to establish with them is a real bonded relationship. I follow them wholeheartedly and I’m immensely proud of them. It’s a win-win situation, all around but it does come with that trepidation, I guess, of what are these students being exposed to? Can they handle what it is that they’re actually seeing, because this is real life. This is real death. They see the worst of Southern Alberta. The majority of cases that the average person south of Alberta knows nothing about.

Yvonne Kjorlien: And death in Western society is not, it’s something very excluded from everyday life.

Janne Holmgren: It’s very uncomfortable, right?

Yvonne Kjorlien: Yeah. It’s not kind of part of our culture. It used to be that the dead stayed within our homes. We would invite people over and have them look at the body, celebrate their life, transition them over to the next plane into death. There was all these rituals and day long celebrations, day long routines that we used to do and we don’t do that anymore. It’s now, when somebody dies, they’re taken away, they’re behind another wall, in a coffin, they’re put in the ground, they’re just taken away, and so we don’t even have exposure to that anymore. Once somebody dies, they’re taken away from us and so to be around death, that is very, very different. It’s not within our culture at all.

Janne Holmgren: Mm- Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, you’re right. You’re right, And the research I have been doing in interviewing everybody that was willing to participate in that work, in that environment, there’s lots of issues related to you exactly what you’re talking about, that makes it difficult for them to do their job, too. For example, one of the findings that I found in the interviews how infrequent people are prepared when someone dies, and the implication for an office like the Office of Chief Medical Examiner is that that often means that the body cannot be released to a funeral home right away because there’s no preparation.

We’ve got issues where the families are split. There’s infighting within the family as to what the wishes of the individual who had died. Nobody’s had that discussion. Nobody knows. This person in the family thinks it should be cremation. This person in the family thinks it should be burial. It should be a white coffin. It should be like all of these things. But that while all that goes on outside of the Office, that means that there is a body, a decedent that is not being removed, and they’re bursting at the seams. That office is an old office, the one in Calgary, and it’s certainly was not built to house the amount of people that are going through there.

So, seeing that and learning that and certainly the overdoses too,

Yvonne Kjorlien: Yeah.

Janne Holmgren: There’s way more of that and in the media and create awareness, about it and so forth and it affects all families.… but the exposure that my students that experience is invaluable.

Yvonne Kjorlien: What do you…so because it’s not mandatory, it’s voluntary, the practicum at the OCME. So how many students do you think have gone through the practicum now? Because you’ve been running it for a few years now.

Janne Holmgren: Yeah, I think we’re in Year Seven so I would say 12.

Yvonne Kjorlien: 12. Okay. Do you see that there’s kind of a pattern in those people that come up to and are at least interested in doing the program and then those that actually go through with it?

Janne Holmgren: It’s very competitive…

Yvonne Kjorlien: Oh, it is? Okay.

Janne Holmgren: Meaning that Leanne Atchison, in our department, the practicum coordinator, and I will interview, for that position. So there’s only one student that goes through every four months. So that is the most: three a year.  

Yvonne Kjorlien: Okay.

Janne Holmgren: During COVID, we did not have a student down there. For obvious reasons.

So it’s very competitive. We do complete interviewing process. Multiple interviews where we really kind of, dig at the student, inform the student this is what you’re gonna see, how are you gonna handle that. What are your support systems? How are you gonna handle the fact that you are p ivy to all of this information that nobody knows anything about and you cannot talk about it. You’re exposed to the evidence of criminal cases that will not go before the courts for maybe a year and you might never even see the true outcome of that case and you have to close your mouth and not share that information with anybody. So our fear, of course, is always that we don’t have a student with integrity, maturity, who just really thinks that this is cool and just wants to be able to tell their friends that they have the coolest practicum. So we have to kind of read through all that, vet through that, and so far — knock on wood — we’ve been very successful with that. We do pick students that we consider to be of high caliber.

And I’m fortunate to teach them. So I teach them in Year Two and I teach them in Year Four. I tell my students in Year Two that I keep track of when they hand in assignments, how they engage in my classes in Year Two and their pattern, throughout their degree: their tardiness, their excuses, that communication, the writing skills, all of that kind of stuff. So, sometimes students don’t get opportunity to even interview because we’re like, “No, no. Not gonna happen.”

Yvonne Kjorlien: So that’s kind of the pre-existing stuff. What do you offer in terms of supports when they’re going through this? Because they may be of high caliber, they’re an engaged student, they’ve kind of met your standards going into it, but because we aren’t exposed to death that much especially that much death in such close proximity  — it’s an intense situation to be into practicum at the OCME’s office.  And so what kind of supports you offer during the practicum that can help either train them or help them deal with the stuff that they’re seeing, with the confidentiality they’re having to keep…

Janne Holmgren: It’s a process. The very first day that they end up attending — and usually it’s three days a week that they go and most of the students go Wednesday Friday, something like that, so there’s a bit of a break but — I’m with them. You attend together. And based on that body language, we’ll talk with them, throughout that day. It’s not like the jump into the autopsy suite, watch bodies that are open, and so forth, right off the bat. You do a lot of talking. There’s a smell that’s at the office, is something that…it’s very difficult to get used to. We go outside, we take breaks. And in that first little bit, at the start of the practicum, they’re not really touching anything. They’re learning. The beautiful thing is that they are allowed to ask all in all the questions in the world. All the questions are answered, some of which I are able to answer and we work through it. Then everybody that works in the office — now that I have past students there — they know what the students going through. So that’s peer support that is invaluable, it’s something that we’ve now established this far into the practicum.

They’re encouraged to keep a diary of a sort. I’ve always said, “Before you get in your car or when you’re in a car, before you leave, write down what you need to kind of get off your chest, and then reach out to me. Let’s talk.” We talk often. We talk on the phone. We talk late at night. We talk anytime during the day. I’m totally available, via text. The students text me: “Can we talk?” and we talk. We talk through how difficult it is to see what they see, the shock, and seeing someone dead, that’s their age. The shock of seeing someone who’s committed suicide, that’s their age. Someone that’s their age that’s died in a motorcycle crash, that died in a vehicle accident and so forth. Those are really difficult. The first time they see a child dead. The first time they see a baby versus five year old baby drowning and there’s the first and the first, right?

Some of my students have the worst day ever on the very first day. We can’t predict that and it’s like, are you kidding me? It can be a homicide on the first day, and then a baby death, and then a suicide, and then a fentanyl overdose and then a fire, and then someone falling off a mountain and then a plane crash. It’s like, whoa, right?

Yvonne Kjorlien: It’s a lot. It’s a lot.

Janne Holmgren: It’s a lot. And remember that all deaths go through that office from Red Deer down to the border, and it’s any accidental death, any homicide. All child deaths are considered unnatural, unless, of course, the child is on the terminal care in a hospital something like that. Fire victims, you name it, right? It’s a lot, but we work through it. And by the end of it, they have figured out a really good way to process it. Some of them are absolutely hooked. This is what they want to do. They can’t think of anything better, whereas some of them are like, ”The experience was invaluable, but I think that my skill set is better served as a police officer as a messenger, to people that are still living.” Which is perfect. I’ve done my job. I think, when I teach death investigation and my forensics course, and I show an autopsy in that course. It’s not mandatory for his students to stay, and I have students that as soon as they hear, the drills, the tools that are used in the autopsy, they don’t all the sudden feel so well and they get up and leave. Perfectly fine.

Yvonne Kjorlien: That’s not for everybody.

Janne Holmgren: That’s not for everybody and then have other students that’s like “Whoa! That is so interesting. That’s quite the puzzle. And I know I want more that.” So it’s a process. It continues to be a process. But there are supports in place, through the university. We’ve got counseling services too. I highly recommend that, I encourage that, but a lot of it is really just talking through, what it is, making sense of it, taking a step away. Using their voices, it’s like, “No, I’m not ready to see that.”

Yvonne Kjorlien: Right.

Janne Holmgren: I’ve had students that are like, “No, I’ve got a child of my own. I can’t see this today,” and that is fine. I’ve had students learn how to sew bodies, weigh organs, take samples and that’s a process. You know, it’s not the first day. It’s probably not even first week. I’ve had a few of them that’s like, whoo-whoo! This is type great and they become, the best sew-ers ever and that’s great. But it’s a process and I never compare one student to a past student either.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Right. They’re very much the individuals going on there individual journeys.

Janne Holmgren: They’re all my stars. They’re all my stars. It takes a lot of courage to expose yourself to that willfully. Because, the picture that you see in your head is a really tough of photograph, or video, a playback, to get rid of. Once see it, once you smell it can be, a permanent imprint.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Yeah, especially that smell. I will never forget that smell. I can’t describe it, but I can never forget it.

Janne Holmgren: Yeah, it’s yeah. I’ve tried putting… what they call that?

Yvonne Kjorlien: The Vicks?

Janne Holmgren: Yeah, the Vicks. Yeah, it doesn’t help. Multiple showers with shampoo into my mouth. Yeah.

Yvonne Kjorlien: No, it’s in your nose. It’s staying for days. That’s it.

Janne Holmgren: I mean that the students are masked, right?

Yvonne Kjorlien: Right.

Janne Holmgren: Big learning covid too, there are still individuals that will end up at the OCME that may have covid, even today, so exposure and stuff is a real thing and learning how to breathe through that for that amount of time, it can make you really, really light-headed too, right? So going outside is really important, grounding your feet and sitting down, and eating and drinking, and all that kind of stuff.

I think that we do a good job looking after the student, but it’s not for everybody and should the student wish to stop that practicum, we take them out immediately. And we tell them that they do not have to stick it out, and it’s not that they are to be considered of a weak character because they are uncomfortable with that situation. Not at all.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Right.

Janne Holmgren: That’s why us deciding on who is the next student for that decision is a long process.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Right. So we’re almost out of time. So, do you see the program continuing? Do you see the program expanding? You do you see the program changing in any way?

Janne Holmgren: We will continue as long as we are welcome. We are limited by the size of the space. I’m sure that they would happily take five, five students, but they’re really is not the physical space. As it is, now it’s like, you’re moving around, trying to stay out of the way so that they’re really important work. So, I hope that we can continue for a really long time. There has been some talks about a new building, but that decision rests with the Justice Minister and whoever provides that kind of money.

I think that, government officials should go and visit the space and what is actually going on down there. It’s really get a full understanding of how important that work is. And that’s what ultimately my research goal is: is to try and take this research and share it with the general public — how important this work is, the dignity of the individuals that work there, how much pride they have in their work, and how little they recognized for that work. It’s everybody’s worst day to have to go and visit that office. A family member being brought in there is everybody’s worst day. But the work that they do down there is so important. And I’m hugely proud of the work that they do at that office and my students, of course.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Right. Just as we close, what is the name of the program which you teach at Mount Royal University?

Janne Holmgren: I teach in the Department of Economics, Justice and Policy Studies in the Faculty of Arts.

Yvonne Kjorlien: In the Faculty of Arts, so if anybody listening to this episode is in getting into the program, that’s where they can find you.

Janne Holmgren: Yes.

Yvonne Kjorlien: Fabulous. All right. Thank you very much.