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In this document, I discuss the summary of Tammy's case, including the causes that lead to her wrongful conviction and the compensation she received upon being exonerated. I conclude the document with some of my own final thoughts.

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Innocence Canada does a great job describing and elaborating Tammy's story, including the her attempts to appeal, the trial process, and the causes of her wrongful conviction.  (Innocence Canada, 2022)

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Introduction

On May 18, 1991, 19-year-old Tammy gave birth to her first child, Kenneth.

Kenneth suffered from a number of serious health issues including asthma, pneumonia and epilepsy. The latter condition caused frequent and extremely severe seizures which saw Kenneth hospitalized several times over the course of his short life.

Kenneth's Death and Autopsy

On the afternoon of October 9, 1993, Tammy went to check on Kenneth - then 2 ½ years old - who was napping on the bed in their spare bedroom. She thought she had heard him calling her. When she got to the bedroom, she found Kenneth tangled in sheets, gasping for breath and in obvious distress. She tried, unsuccessfully, to free him, before calling for an ambulance. The 911 operator instructed her to perform CPR, but she was unable to calm herself sufficiently to follow the instructions. The emergency crews arrived and took Kenneth to hospital, where he was revived; but tragically, the doctors determined that he had suffered irreparable brain damage. Three days later, Kenneth was taken off life support and passed away. Tammy gave permission for his viable organs to be harvested for donation, as she hoped that her tragedy could prevent other parents from suffering a similar loss.

In 1993, Charles Smith was the leading expert in Canada on criminally suspicious pediatric deaths. He was the Director of the Ontario Pediatric Forensic Pathology Unit at SickKids Hospital in Toronto, and frequently lectured on pediatric forensic pathology to Crown counsel, police officers and coroners. He was tasked with performing Kenneth's autopsy. Smith concluded that Kenneth's death was not accidental and, on November 23, 1993 - less than two months after losing Kenneth - Tammy was arrested and charged with the second-degree murder of her son.

Tammy's Trial

Tammy was tried by judge and jury in Whitby, Ontario. Smith testified that Kenneth's cause of death was asphyxia and surmised that his death was as a result of him being strangled or smothered. Smith's testimony was central to the prosecution's theory that Tammy had suffocated her son in a moment of frustration. In the eyes of the Crown, Tammy was a young mother with limited financial resources, parenting and coping skills, who was involved in an unstable relationship with Kenneth's step-father. Smith pointed to petechial haemorrhages - small red spots on the organs and tissues that had not been donated - as proof of this theory. The Crown further relied on the testimony of several Children's Aid workers to lend circumstantial support to Smith's conclusion.

Tammy testified in her own defence and insisted that she was innocent, a position she unwaveringly maintained throughout her ordeal. The defence argued that Kenneth had died during an epileptic seizure, but they called no medical expert of their own to support this theory. Perhaps not surprisingly, the jury accepted the Crown's theory, and, on October 24, 1995, Tammy was convicted of Kenneth's murder. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 10 years.

Tammy appealed her conviction to the Ontario Court of Appeal. On January 22, 1998, her appeal was dismissed by a unanimous court. Since Legal Aid Ontario refused to provide her with further funding, she was not able to make an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Having lost her son and her case, Tammy languished in prison.

AIDWYC and Tammy's Exoneration

As early as 1991, concerns were voiced regarding Smith's professional competence. That year, trial judge Justice Dunn acquitted a 12-year-old girl who had been charged with manslaughter following the death of the 16-month-old child she was babysitting. Justice Dunn was critical of Smith's evidence, methodology and conclusion. Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, Smith continued to garner negative attention - though given what is now known about Smith's reign of terror during these years, in retrospect the complaints were relatively few and far between.

In February 2003, the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC) wrote to the Crown Law Office Criminal (of Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General), requesting the release of autopsy materials from another of Smith's patients for their work on the William Mullins-Johnson case. AIDWYC soon grew suspicious of Smith's conclusions in other cases as well. In 2004, Tammy applied to AIDWYC for help with her case. In April 2005, AIDWYC wrote to Dr. Barry McLellan (then the Chief Coroner for Ontario) and Michael Bryant (then the Attorney General), urging a full public inquiry into Smith's work.[1]

On June 7, 2005, Dr. McLellan announced in a press release that a formal review would be conducted of criminally suspicious child deaths for which Smith had performed the autopsy. By this time, Tammy had spent over a decade in prison. As part of the Chief Coroner's Review - the precursor to the later and broader Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in Ontario, commonly referred to as the Goudge Inquiry - Dr. Pekka Saukko, a Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Turku, Finland, was assigned to review Kenneth's case.

In his October 2007 report to the Chief Coroner, Dr. Saukko concluded that Smith's finding of asphyxia was "illogical and completely against scientific evidence-based reasoning." He found that "[t]here is not sufficient evidence for the diagnosis of asphyxia to be made. It cannot be based only on petechial hemorrhages [the "red spots"] of thymus, pulmonary pleura and epicardium which are non-specific findings. The cause of death should be given as unascertained." Later at the Goudge Inquiry, Dr. Saukko testified that the evidence that Smith had given at Tammy's preliminary inquiry and trial was unprofessional and misleading.

In 2008, Dr. Simon Avis, the Chief Medical Examiner for the Province of Newfoundland, conducted a second comprehensive review of the medical evidence and circumstances surrounding Kenneth's death. In his report, Dr. Avis agreed that Smith had wrongly attributed Kenneth's death to homicidal asphyxia and concluded that Kenneth may have died during an epileptic seizure or from other natural causes. While Smith stated that the harvesting of several of Kenneth's organs prior to autopsy was merely a "minor inconvenience," both Dr. Avis and Dr. Saukko were critical of this fact.

On February 10, 2009, AIDWYC brought an application for leave to appeal Tammy's case to the Supreme Court of Canada, along with the necessary application for an extension of time to file said appeal. The following day, the request for an extension of time was granted and, on March 12, 2009, Tammy was released from the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario, pending the decision on her application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. She had spent nearly 14 years in prison.[2]

On April 30, 2009, the Supreme Court of Canada issued an order remanding the case to the Court of Appeal for Ontario for consideration of the fresh evidence and a determination of whether Tammy's conviction constituted a miscarriage of justice. This process took two years, but on June 7, 2011, the Ontario Court of Appeal quashed her conviction and ordered that a new trial commence on February 10, 2012.

Before the new trial could begin, however, the Crown withdrew the charges against Tammy. That decision was no doubt based on the fresh medical evidence provided by experts: the Dr. Avis, and Dr. Christopher Milroy, an expert retained by the Crown. Both agreed that Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) could not be ruled out as the cause of death in Kenneth's case. Furthermore, Dr. Avis suggested two additional alternative natural causes for Kenneth's death, both well-known causes of sudden deaths in infants and children due to inborn errors of metabolism. These two alternative causes are known as medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase (MCAD) deficiency and cardiac conduction defects.

The Causes of Tammy's Wrongful Conviction

Clearly, the overriding cause of Tammy's wrongful conviction was the evidence of Charles Smith. As Commissioner Goudge put it, Smith had "neither formal forensic pathology training nor board certification in that field." In short, he was a pediatric pathologist, not a forensic pathologist. In addition to being unqualified to do the autopsy work on which he spent so much time, Smith was a terrible expert witness. He consistently gave misleading statements and, at times, told outright lies on the witness stand. The reader is encouraged to view Commissioner Goudge's report in its entirety.[3]

If not for Charles Smith, it is unlikely that Tammy would have spent almost 14 years in prison for a "crime" that never happened. That said, there were other factors that contributed to her wrongful conviction. The jury heard a considerable amount of evidence regarding her demeanor at the hospital, Kenneth's funeral and upon her arrest. If this unreliable evidence were led at a trial today, it would likely be ruled inadmissible. While the trial judge instructed the jury not to place any weight on this evidence concerning the appropriateness of Tammy's emotional reaction, the fact is that they heard countless witnesses recount and opine on how an innocent, grieving mother should react to losing a child. Further, the fact that the defence did not call its own medical expert to testify at trial in support of their theory that Kenneth had died as a result of an epileptic seizure was problematic. Legal Aid Ontario's refusal to fund an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada also cannot be ignored.

The Wounds AIDWYC Cannot Heal

Tammy's wrongful conviction - like all wrongful convictions - had multiple causes. Most people cannot imagine the pain not only of losing a child, but also of having that pain unbearably compounded by an arrest, trial and wrongful conviction for his murder. Tammy experienced it all and spent 13 years in prison for a crime that did not happen. Though nothing can bring Kenneth back or restore the years that Tammy lost, AIDWYC fought for Tammy - as it does for all its clients - and the truth of her innocence was revealed.

[1] Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in Ontario Report (the Honorable Stephen T. Goudge, Commissioner), Volume 2: Systemic Review (2008), online: http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/inquiries/goudge/report/index.html ["Goudge Inquiry"].

[2] Tracey Tyler, "Woman in case of disgraced pathologist freed on bail" (13 March 2009), online: The Star http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/2009/03/13/woman_in_case_of_disgraced_pathologist_freed_on_bail.html

[3] See http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/inquiries/goudge/index.html

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On May 18, 1991, 19-year-old Tammy gave birth to her first child, Kenneth. Kenneth suffered from a number of serious health issues including asthma, pneumonia and epilepsy. The latter condition caused frequent and extremely severe seizures which saw Kenneth hospitalized several times over the course of his short life.

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Due to the staggering evidence against Charles Smith, Tammy Marquardt was able to launch an appeal on entirely new grounds. The following webpage summarizes the appeal process for the R v Marquardt (1998), 1998 CanLII 3527 (ON CA), 37 OR (3d) 321) case. (Ross, 2015)

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Tammy Marie Marquardt has applied for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC"). Her case will surely capture the attention of Canadians who have been following the inquiry into the work of Dr. Charles Smith, the disgraced pediatric forensic pathologist.
Background
Dr. Smith's questionable work was first brought to light, as recounted in a CBC article, in an April 2007 coroner's inquiry that reviewed 45 child autopsies in which Dr. Smith concluded that the cause of death was either homicide or criminally suspicious. The review found that Dr. Smith had made questionable conclusions of foul play in 20 of the cases, and 13 of those cases resulted in criminal convictions of individuals for the murder of the children under their care.

Once the review's findings were made public, the Ontario government ordered a public inquiry into Dr. Smith's practices. This subsequent Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in Ontario was led by Justice Stephen T. Goudge, the substance of which I have previously discussed here. While the crux of this lengthy report consisted of recommendations to improve the province's pediatric forensic pathology system, Justice Goudge also outlined Dr. Smith's specific failings, finding that Dr. Smith had "actively misled" his superiors, "made false and misleading statements" in court, and exaggerated his expertise in trials.

This characterization of Dr. Smith is germane to the case of Ms. Marquardt, the only parent in Canada still in prison for a murder conviction due to Dr. Smith's testimony. In her first interview with Kirk Makin of The Globe and Mail, Ms. Marquardt explained that 14 years ago, while on trial for the death of her 2-year-old son Kenneth, she passed up the opportunity to plead guilty to manslaughter because, as she says, "I hadn't done anything ... [w]hy should I take it?"

As stated in the SCC brief recounting the trial details, Dr. Smith's testimony was central to the prosecution's theory that Ms. Marquardt had limited parenting and coping skills. Dr. Smith was also integral to the prosecution by discounting the fact that Kenneth had been treated for seizures in the past, resulting in a significant dilution of the defence's theory that Kenneth may have died during a seizure. Ultimately, Dr. Smith's now-controversial evidence, seemingly solid at the time, helped to convict Ms. Marquardt of second-degree murder.
Appeal to the ONCA, and Beyond
Before there was any question as to Dr. Smith's conduct, Ms. Marquardt launched an appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal ("ONCA") in 1998 (see R v Marquardt (1998), 1998 CanLII 3527 (ON CA), 37 OR (3d) 321 ). Ms. Marquadt appealed on three grounds. She alleged that the trial judge erred in failing to properly direct the jury as to the meaning of reasonable doubt. Secondly, she argued that the trial judge erred in directing the jury that they could draw an adverse inference against Ms. Marquardt's version of a conversation with a witness because her version had not been brought to the witness in cross-examination. The ONCA dispatched both arguments in one paragraph. Ms. Marquadt's third ground of appeal was that the trial judge erred in failing to relate the evidence in support of a manslaughter verdict to the elements of that offence.

Finally, Ms. Marquardt argued that this non-direction deprived her of the jury's effective appreciation of the manslaughter alternative. Though the ONCA considered this ground in more detail, the court still found that the judge's charge on manslaughter was sufficient, and the appeal was dismissed.

Now, in light of the staggering evidence against Dr. Smith, Ms. Marquardt has the opportunity to launch her appeal on entirely new grounds. Her motion to extend the time to serve and file her application for leave to appeal from the ONCA's 1998 judgment, and to file a lengthy memorandum of argument, has been granted by the SCC.

Though it is clear that the details of her appeal are still under construction, an affidavit filed with the SCC brief demonstrates that Dr. Smith's excoriated work will certainly be questioned in this case, as it has in so many others. In the affidavit, Newfoundland's Chief Medical Examiner dismisses Dr. Smith's conclusion that Kenneth's death was due to asphyxia as "wrong and inappropriate." This view is corroborated by a Finnish pathologist, who stated that Dr. Smith's conclusions were "illogical" and "against scientific-based reasoning." Based on this preliminary argumentation, it is safe to say that Dr. Smith's name will yet again be in the news once Ms. Marquardt's case reaches the Supreme Court.

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And Then There Was One: A Final Charles Smith Wrongful Conviction? | CanLII Connects

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Tammy Marie Marquardt has applied for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC"). Her case will surely capture the attention of Canadians who have been following the inquiry into the work of Dr. Charles Smith, the disgraced pediatric forensic pathologist.

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Tammy Speaks with CBC After Being Exonerated

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Tammy Speaks with CBC After Being Exonerated

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Tammy discusses her feelings toward Charles Smith, and emphasizes on her hope that her two sons reach out to her now that she is released. Tammy shares a picture of her son, Kenneth. (CBC, 2010)

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Tammy Marquardt talks to reporters after being cleared of charges in the death of her toddler

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Murder Charges Dropped - Durham Radio News. 

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Murder Charges Dropped - Durham Radio News. 

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After Tammy's release, Durham Radio news interviewed Tammy about her exoneration. Tammy's focus was on her hopes that her two son's (who were adopted out) will find her. (Murder charges dropped against Oshawa mother, Tammy marquardt, 2011).

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Murder charges dropped against Oshawa mother, Tammy Marquardt

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This image is of Tammy at 39 years old after she had been exonerated. She has a fiance who she share's a daughter with, and they live together in Toronto. (The Child Cases: Lessons from Canada: NPR, 2011)

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Dr. Charles Smith Stripped of his Medical Licence

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Dr. Charles Smith Stripped of his Medical Licence

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The disgraced pediatric forensic pathologist was stripped of his medal licence after many unethical and illogical conclusions that had lead to several wrongful convictions, including Tammy Marquardt's. (Toronto Sun, 2018)

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Disgraced pathologist stripped of medical licence

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Tammy's Experience in Maximum Security Prison While Pregnant

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Tammy's Experience in Maximum Security Prison While Pregnant

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Tammy was expecting another son when she was wrongly incarcerated for the death of her 2-year-old son. Women face several difficulties while they are pregnant and imprisoned, and this article touches on what life was like for Tammy during her pregnancy in prison. (Chipman, 2017)

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John Chipman's book Death in the Family delves into the lives of four of the families devastated by a child's death and then victimized by Dr. Charles Smith, Ontario's top pediatric forensic pathologist. Years later Smith would be found guilty of professional misconduct.
Scarborough native Tammy Marquardt spent 13 years in prison for murdering her 2-year-old son, Kenneth Wynne. She lost another son to adoption through Children's Aid, then entered prison pregnant. Her conviction in October 1995 was quashed in 2011 because it relied on flawed testimony from Smith that pointed to asphyxiation. A new trial was ordered, but the Crown withdrew charges.
Tammy and the other new prisoners were first taken to Admissions and Discharge. Everyone was strip-searched, then given their prison kit: two pairs of sweatpants, two sweaters, two T-shirts, five pairs of underwear, five pairs of socks, two bras, four towels, four facecloths, two sheets, one pillow, one pillowcase, a blue blanket and some basic toiletries and personal hygiene products. All of her worldly belongings could now fit inside a pillowcase.

After intake, the new inmates were taken to see the OIC, or the officer-in-charge, and he had some words of advice for Tammy. "If you want that child to live," he said, pointing to her stomach, "you don't tell anyone what you're in here for."

It had never occurred to Tammy that none of the other inmates would know what she was in for. She asked McGinnis what she should say if people asked.

"Tell them you killed your husband," he said.

It was good advice, crucial advice; advice he didn't have to give her. She was never sure whether he told her for her baby's sake, for her own safety or to save himself the trouble of dealing with the aftermath if an inmate tried to beat her to death.

P4W was a multi-security prison, since at the time it was the only women's penal institution in the country. The prison was made up of two ranges, called A and B, a segregation unit and a separate area called the Wing. New inmates - the "fresh fish" - were housed in A range; B range was for the troublemakers, the inmates who liked to start fights and otherwise stir up trouble.

Protective custody was in the segregation unit; it was for the baby killers and "goofs" - the pedophiles. The protective custody-special needs unit housed the mentally unstable. The Wing - split into North and South sections - was for minimum-security inmates, or lifers. Inmates were given slightly more freedom down on the Wing, where the cells looked a bit more like rooms than concrete boxes. The Wing was the carrot; if you behaved yourself, that's where they'd put you.

Charles Smith on his last day of testimony at the Pediatric Forensic Pathology Inquiry, known as the Goudge Indquiry, in 2008. It followed a review that found mistakes in 20 child-death investigations. (Aaron Lynett)

Tammy started out double-bunked on A range. A and B ranges were long, two-tier corridors that ran parallel to each other. Though the walls were concrete, sound travelled through them as if they were paper. Each range housed more than 50 cells, tiny boxes that barely measured nine feet by six. Jammed inside each was a metal bunk bed with mattresses that weren't much thicker than a folded-up blanket. There was a tall cabinet for personal belongings, a metal desk, a metal drawer, a sink on one wall. The toilet was mounted on the back wall, behind the bed.

It was such a tight squeeze that the front of the toilet was under the lip of the bed, making it almost impossible to sit on the toilet properly. You had to either sit sideways or straddle the toilet and then carefully slide your feet under the bed frame and your knees up against it in order to sit down. Tammy was barely five feet tall and 85 pounds and even she couldn't sit on it properly.

And there was no hope of privacy. Prisoners were allowed to hang a blanket across the metal bars of their cells, but the door itself always had to be kept clear. Inmates and guards, female and male, could see inside as a prisoner squatted in the back corner.

And then there was her roommate. Tammy would be sharing the tiny cell with another pregnant inmate. When she couldn't hold it any longer, Tammy would have to s--- in the open cell with her roommate within arm's reach.

But that indignity didn't last long. Lifers weren't supposed to be double-bunked. At her first meal that evening, Tammy met the chair of the lifers group, who immediately started petitioning for her to move down to the Wing, where living conditions were more passable. The cells there had locks on the inside. The guards could still open them, but it gave the inmates some privacy from other inmates. Tammy was transferred down to the Wing after a month.

She'd been living on the Wing just a couple of weeks when another lifer called her into her cell. Her name was Agatha, and she was pushing 70, Tammy figured. She was a nice woman who'd taken Tammy under her wing. Agatha reminded her of Tweety Bird's Granny: matronly, but fierce when someone she cared for came under threat.

Agatha asked Tammy if she watched the news. Tammy shook her head. Agatha said she'd seen a story that she thought might be about Tammy, and asked her point-blank what she was really in for.

Tammy started to sob. She hadn't meant to lie, she admitted, but she'd been warned she'd have to if she wanted her baby to live. Agatha only cared what Tammy had been convicted of.

"They said I killed my son."

Death in the Family tells four stories, from child's death through to forensic analysis to the legal system and finally the inquest into Dr. Charles Smith.

Agatha said she would get the guards to move Tammy into protective custody, or PC, a separate unit that was a sort of prison within the prison, meant for inmates who couldn't live in the general population because their crimes made them targets - crimes like killing your child.

As if on cue, inmates began banging on Agatha's cell door, screaming obscenities. "Get that f---ing baby killer out of here!" "She's just having that kid so she can kill another one!" "We're going to f---ing kill her! We're going to torture her!" "Let her out, you bitch! You're harbouring a baby killer!"

The screaming continued for several minutes; it felt like hours to Tammy, cowering in the cell while inmates pounded on the bars and threatened to beat her to death. Prison guards finally arrived to clear the hallway and take Tammy away. They took her first to segregation. She was strip-searched again, and that's when she realized she was covered in blood. The baby was in distress.

The guards rushed her to the health-care unit, which then rushed her to Kingston General Hospital. There, the obstetrician gave her a quick examination and an ultrasound. The baby was fine, she said. No need to worry, just some spot bleeding.

Back at the prison, Tammy was returned to segregation. Her bleeding slowed but didn't stop. After a couple of days, she was transferred to the protective custody unit. This was actually two units: protective custody, and protective custody-special needs. Tammy ended up in the special needs unit at first. The cell was just outside the guards' office, and she was under constant supervision. She wasn't allowed out except to shower. She was then moved to protective custody.

It would be her home for the rest of her time at P4W, locked away from the other inmates for her own protection.

"Basically, you had a price on your head [in protective custody]. You were targeted the second you walked in there," Tammy recalled years later.

She would be living alongside baby killers and pedophiles, the mentally unhinged and "psychos." She'd be living in the same unit as Karla Homolka.

Tammy remembers watching Homolka bounce down the stairs, her hair pulled back in a girlish ponytail. She reminded Tammy of Marsha from The Brady Bunch.

"Hi, I'm Karla," a bubbly Homolka said outside Tammy's cell. "If you need anything, just holler up and I'll get it for you."

Tammy only nodded. She couldn't bring herself to respond.

They didn't become friends. Tammy kept her distance, and the serial killer didn't push it. But some interactions were unavoidable. Karla was the prisoner representative for the protective custody unit. Any complaints Tammy had about life in PC needed to be funnelled through Karla, who would bring them to the inmate committee and eventually the prison administration. So although some conversation was inevitable, Tammy said she did her best to keep it to a minimum.

Despite the close quarters, there weren't that many opportunities to interact anyway. There were no shared meals in a mess hall. In PC, inmates ate their meals alone, locked in their cells. The unit was on almost constant lockdown, not because of disruptions there but because both of the two PC guards needed to be present if the cells were to be left open. But one of the guards was frequently called away to help quell disruptions in other parts of the prison, leaving only one on duty - and leaving everyone locked in their cells.

Teresa and Lauralie were the only other women in protective custody. Tammy wasn't sure what they were in for, but the talk among inmates was that they had killed their children. Lauralie was tight with Karla, at least when Karla was within earshot. Otherwise Lauralie would complain that she couldn't stand her. Teresa was large, aggressive and moody.

They had occasional access to the adjacent protective custody-special needs unit as well, but it wasn't a place you'd want to visit. That's where the mentally unstable prisoners were housed, the ones who likely should have been in a hospital rather than a prison. They wailed and screamed, banged their heads against the metal bars of their cell doors. Several tried to kill themselves. One woman threw her own feces at other inmates if they got too close to her cell.

And that was Tammy's world: two alleged child killers, Karla Homolka and a ward full of the mentally unhinged.

Author John Chipman.

Moving around the prison was a problem. P4W was a violent, dangerous place - especially for convicted child killers. But Tammy needed to get around - she was pregnant. She had regular pre-natal appointments in the health clinic, plus she had prison-mandated sessions with a psychologist. But getting from her cell to her appointments could be dangerous.

As a convicted child killer, Tammy was always escorted by a prison guard, who would take her down to a basement tunnel to move her about the prison. "The tunnel was the danger zone," Tammy explained years later. "There were little hidden corners, little breaks in the walls. I had coffee thrown at me. I had shoes thrown at me. I had bodily fluids thrown at me.

"I had one girl come up behind us and hit me with her coffee cup."

There was a blind corner at the end of the tunnel. The lighting was poor, the shadows were long, and you had no idea who was waiting around the corner. And sometimes Tammy's escort turned away.

"That was the extreme danger zone," she said. "That's where I got jumped more times than I care to remember. The guard would just walk away or turn around." One time, four women were waiting for Tammy. At first she fought back, but she soon realized it was pointless - it was far from a fair fight. So Tammy learned to go down quickly, turtling on the floor, her arms protecting her head, her legs pulled up tightly to protect her abdomen as a torrent of fists and feet pounded her.

"It was only after I was down on the ground that I guess the guard figured, 'That's enough. Don't actually kill her.' Then she would step in."

Eric Anthony Steven Marquardt was born on June 20, 1996, at Kingston General Hospital. Tammy gave birth in shackles and handcuffs. The prison guards refused to take them off because she was a maximum-security prisoner. As well, Tammy was appealing her conviction, which made her a flight risk.

The restraints meant she couldn't get her feet into the stirrups for the birth. She pulled her feet up and in, pushing her knees out to the side, her legs contorted into a diamond shape. The obstetrician draped a blanket over her legs and did the best he could. Labour lasted a day and a half.

After the birth, the guards undid her handcuffs so she could hold her newborn. But they kept the shackles on and chained one arm to the wheelchair. She did her best to breathe in her son, to memorize the lines and creases of his face. Then the social workers bundled Eric up and took him away. Tammy shuffled into the prison transfer wagon and headed back to P4W.
Excerpted from Death in the Family by John Chipman. Copyright © 2017 by John Chipman. Published by Doubleday Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved. Correction - February 21, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Barry McGinnis was the officer-in-charge (OIC) at the Grand Valley Institution for Women in 1996 when Tammy Marquardt began serving a life sentence for murdering her 2-year-old son. In fact, McGinnis was not working at the prison at that time and was not the guard who pointed at Marquardt's stomach and said, "If you want that child to live, you don't tell anyone what you're in here for."
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Falsely convicted, in maximum security and pregnant | Toronto Star

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John Chipman's book Death in the Family delves into the lives of four of the families devastated by a child's death and then victimized by Dr. Charles Smith, Ontario's top pediatric forensic pathologist. Years later Smith would be found guilty of professional misconduct.

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Tammy speaks with CBC just a few days after the Ontario Court of Appeal granted her release.

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The book is about Tammy and how her innocence was taken away by an unethical and incompetent doctor who nearly destroyed her life. For many years she fought for her innocence, and she finally received some justice.