By Ashley K (sister of Moraya Harrison)

Reporting on Moraya Harrison coroner’s report failed her family

Feb 6, 2019 | 8:08 AM

MORAYA HARRISON was many things: an athlete, an artist, a social butterfly and a person who cared deeply about the interpersonal relationships she fostered. She was kind and outgoing and whatever contributed to her death, officially ruled as an accident by the BC Coroner’s Service, does not detract from the loss, grief and pain myself, my family and her friends have had to endure in the wake of this sudden tragedy.

My father served as her primary caregiver for her entire life. It was him who called me that June 14th morning to inform me of her death — it was his birthday. What I heard through the end of the phone that day was more a combination of sounds than actual words. He sounded like a wounded animal, braying into the stillness of a frigid night. As a parent myself, I knew that he was experiencing the greatest pain a parent can endure, the loss of a child.

In the days that followed, our family scrambled to come together to protect and support each other as we navigated the motions of a death of one of our own: contacting family before they were hit with the news in the media, reaching out to her friends, contacting funeral homes, finding a venue, selecting songs and photos to eulogize Moraya, enduring the funeral and, individually, doing our best to move forward.

In those early days, I volunteered to serve as primary contact for the BC Coroner’s Service, in an effort to shoulder some of the burden away from my dad. Since June, I have had regular phone conversations with Mr. Cave and I am so thankful for both his thoroughness and professionalism. He answered every one of my questions and, when he spoke of Moraya, he did so with dignity and respect, at times pausing in his answers to allow me the opportunity to collect myself.

The coroner’s report was actually released several weeks ago. I was warned that there was a good chance that one of the local news organizations would be reporting on its findings and the, approximate 10-day lead time window, would allow the family time to absorb the contents of the report before it was open for scrutiny and interpretation.

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In reading your article, I feel strongly that your reporting failed our family and Moraya’s legacy. The article, which is merely a regurgitation of an open access coroner’s report, feels reductive in its nature because it propagates the assumption that, “stupid kids do stupid things.” There is danger in this line of reporting because it encourages your readership to subscribe to a false narrative about an actual human being with friends and family in your community. 

The fact remains that the primary cause of Moraya’s death was officially ruled as an accidental fall from a significant height and the results of the toxicology report were not the cause of death. The inclusion of the results of this report in your article almost reads as an afterthought, yet I can’t help but feel that there was some kind of strategy in its placement to leave your readership with a sticking point that further stigmatizes her actions that day and tarnishes her memory. Given the current drug climate in BC, our family does not want her death to be another statistic, because it wasn’t — it was a tragic, sudden accident. It’s unfortunate that there are those who have taken to social media to already cast the dark shadow of judgment upon a young woman they didn’t know because Moraya was so much more than a statistic; she was a real human being and her death has profoundly affected real people. 

My goal in writing a response is to stimulate a conversation around the publication and the consumption of published media. I would encourage your readership to think critically and question what they’re reading, in all forums. How would you feel if this was your daughter? How do you think all of these comments and snap judgments from people who know nothing about the situation, or the events of that day, would affect you? Is this how you would want your daughter memorialized? There were several missed opportunities here to investigate and develop an actual story about a member of the Kamloops community without reducing her memory to a convenient, marketable statistic. To all of you who have read the article and have jumped to unnecessary conclusions about Moraya, the way she lived her life or the day she died, myself and my family continue to try and navigate through the grief and loss we feel and I hope that none of you ever have to experience it. 

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.