Keira’s story: How a broken system left a little girl dead

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Jordan Heath-Rawlings A quick warning, today’s episode of the Big Story is not easy to listen to. It wasn’t easy for our guest to report either, but it’s important they gave it to him on Wednesday. He picked up Keir on Friday and killed her on Sunday. Is it the norm to hand somebody a report that suggests you are high risk to your own child and then say, go take the child for the weekend? No, it, it’s it. It’s abnormal. This is a story about a little girl named Kira. If the system worked the way it’s supposed to, you wouldn’t have to know Kira’s name and neither would I. She would just be a little girl, one of millions going to school, playing with toys growing up, but the system doesn’t work. So here we are. The courts and the Child Protective Agency didn’t allow me to protect my child. There’s not much more for me to tell you here. Three years ago, Kira died. She was with her father. 
There were screaming warnings that she shouldn’t have been, but she was, it was a failure and then a tragedy, and then three years of bullshit. And this week, a report detailing exactly how often and how badly the system failed, Kira and her mother and others like them. So what happened to Kira? More importantly, how was it allowed to happen and how do we fix this? I am Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big StorY. Cynthia Mulligan is a longtime reporter at City News. One of our favourite guests on this podcast. She’s been following and chasing Kira’s story for a long time now. Hi, Cynthia.

Cynthia Mulligan Hi, Jordan.

Jordan Before we get. All the awful stuff that makes me and you and probably everybody listening, sad and angry. 
Why don’t we take a couple minutes, you could just tell me about Kira. Who is she?

Cynthia Mulligan Well, Kira had the brightest smile. I, I’ve been given extensive video of her from her mother and she just had this beautiful, charming way about her. She, she’s, Spunky as inquisitive, but it’s the smile that really strikes me when I see all these videos of her and all the photos of her, and she just seems so full of joy. 


Jordan What about her and her family, uh, what that dynamic was and just kind of set us up so we can tell her story properly?

Cynthia Mulligan Kira was in junior kindergarten. She was just four years old when she died. Her time was spent with both of her parents who had divorced and had separated when she was just eight months old. The mother left the marriage. Kira’s mother is a doctor. The father, Robin Brown, an engineer, and they were married for about two and a half years, but the mother cites abuse and coercive control in the marriage, including at one point when she was eight months. Pregnant with Kira Robin Brown shoved a dead mouse into her mouth when she left a lengthy court battle over. Custody began. Kira was eight months old and that battle continued until the very day that she died. Along with her father, Robin Brown. The two fell from a cliff at Rattlesnake Point, which is at a conservation area in Milton, and up until now, the deaths have been determined, inconclusive, but I obtained. Two new reports into the death, which are just damning, and the coroner’s report finds that the case is largely consistent with past murder suicides and that likely Robin Brown did this in an active revenge against Kira’s mother. I mentioned in the intro to this episode that none of us would be even talking about Kira, if the system. 


Jordan How exactly did the system fail to protect Kira?

Cynthia Mulligan The system failed on every level. Every single level. So to begin with, in the courts, in the family law courts, they did not appear to recognize that this was a case of domestic violence. Instead, they looked at it at it as a high conflict case, which means two parents battling each other, and that means that the proper systems to protect Kira were not put in place. The first judge that saw the case deemed. Jennifer Kagan. Kira’s mother was right to leave the marriage and he recognized that there was violence in the marriage. Abuse in the marriage. But the second judge who determined the custody arrangement found that domestic abuse was not relevant when it comes to parenting, when in fact we know. There are reams of evidence that a, a parent who is abusive can also abuse the child and is more likely to abuse the child. So the judge just did not recognize this. And then you have the Children’s Aid Society. You had two that were largely involved. A third was brought in, it was an indigenous children’s aid society because the father claimed he had indigenous roots and that c a s determined that that was not the case. So there were two children’s aid societies involved. Ultimately, it was left to the Jewish Family and Child Services Agency. For years, Jennifer had been telling the court. That Robin Brown was dangerous and she was worried and nobody listened up until the very days leading up to Kira’s death. A judge at Jennifer’s request asked for a risk assessment and said, don’t worry. The Jewish Children Family Services is going to look into this, and if there’s a problem, they can raise the alarm. Well, just three days before Kira’s. The case worker called Jennifer and said, I believe he is exhibiting behavior that is consistent with a parent that could heal, kill, or harm their child. 


Jordan Why didn’t everything stop there?

Cynthia Mulligan It, it’s a, it’s a wonderful question. The c a s worker, Jennifer says, told her that her supervisor said, we can discuss this on Monday. This is the Friday before Robin Brown. Is scheduled by the courts to pick up Kira for the weekend. Robin Brown was also given that risk assessment report. He was given it on the Wednesday. He’s picking up Kira on the Friday, on that Friday. The caseworker tells Jennifer, despite her concerns, it’s going to be dealt with on the Monday. Kira died on the Sunday. Let’s talk about this new report for a moment. The risk factors, which you’ve mentioned.

Jordan Give me a sense of what those risk factors are and how is it, uh, that the courts could miss that? 


Cynthia Mulligan Jordan outta the 22 risk factors that the report finds that Robin Brown exhibited. They include prior hostage taking or forcible confinement, choking, strangling the mother in the past, prior violence against family pets. Now after the deaths, they also interviewed prior girlfriends. Who also told the review committee that there were problems or told the police that there had been problems. He was known to have a propensity to lie. The courts found he had a propensity to lie. The courts found that he forged documents and submitted them to the courts. He told Jennifer before they got married that he had a PhD. He didn’t have a PhD. Much of this was evident before the courts, and still they ignored the warning signs. 


Jordan Hmm. They were. What kind of factors are at play there? When the courts are deciding on custody, what do they prioritize and how could it be? I’m not asking, uh, if it was the right decision, obviously it wasn’t. How could it be that they would make this decision?

Cynthia Mulligan So I’m told by lawyers advocates and Philip Viter, who is Jennifer’s second husband, she remarried when Kira was about three years old. He’s a family law lawyer, and the court’s family court’s emphasis is on giving people 50-50 custody, giving both parents the same amount of custody and a result as a result, as one advocate says, then it’s predetermined regardless. And as Philip Viader says, we need to shift the entire, um, viewpoint of the courts because they’re focused too much on equal custody and they’re blind. 
To the underlying problems, they don’t see them. A recent study a couple of years ago in Canada amongst family law judges found that they said 25% of the cases they see involve domestic violence. Hmm, 25%. And yet the emphasis is on, on giving equal access. There’s also a real problem, Jordan, I’m told in the recognition of domestic violence and in particular coercive control. So coercive control is, is when one partner is constantly gaslighting another, they isolate the other partner they have, they have control over them, but it’s this insidious, invisible thing and it’s harder to identify. It’s not a black eye or a broken arm, those are easy to identify coercive control is not, and I’m told by many that it’s actually a, a, deeper, more insidious problem. And judges, I’m told Jordan, don’t understand it and therefore they’re not applying the law properly. And I’m not saying all judges, but it certainly seems to be the problem in this case or one of the many problems in. In a perfect world, that risk assessment comes back. Um, there’s some red flags on it. 


Jordan What happens next that makes sure the rest of this tragedy doesn’t happen?

Cynthia Mulligan Well, first of all, the Children’s Aid society never should have given the father the risk assessment just days before he was supposed to pick up. Kira, what should have happened, I’m told, or what generally is supposed to happen, is that a parent. Would be given the risk assessment perhaps in the courtroom and said, okay, we have a problem and you’re not going to have access until we resolve this. And then the child is kept in a safe place until they actually figure out what is going on. And that didn’t happen. He was given the risk assessment. He’s given every indication that he may lose custody and then he is given his child for the weekend.

Jordan What do we actually know about what happened that weekend?

Cynthia Mulligan Well, we know he picked her up on the Friday, and then on the Sunday he took her for a walk to Rattlesnake Point. We know that he went off the trail. Into an area that was, was more challenging. And the report even said, you know, it, it, it didn’t feel like it was an appropriate place for a child. And in decades no child has fallen off that cliff. It’s off the path and it’s not where you would normally take a four year old child. And when he did not come home, police were called. 


Jordan Tell me about the conflict around, uh, this case being labeled inconclusive instead of a murder suicide. What goes into that?

Cynthia Mulligan So the coroner that investigated deemed that it was inconclusive, and what that means then is it’s either up to the chief coroner or an inquest jury. To determine the actual cause of death. But the coroner, the original coroner requested this report that I have been given access to, and this report will be given to the chief coroner, and this is the report that strongly states that it is consistent with a murder suicide apparent killing their child. So the next step is up to the chief coroner. This is Dr. Dirk Hoyer. He can determine if this is a murder suicide, or he can call for an in. We are talking right now about a pretty extreme example of how these things can go wrong in the course of doing this reporting or, and I know you’ve done other reporting in this area.

Jordan Yes, How often does the system fail like this? 


Cynthia Mulligan And we don’t hear about it because luckily the child comes home, one family lawyer and an advocate tells me that, that she believes there are thousands of cases like this before the courts Right. But again, this is an extreme case, so we don’t hear about it, but another report talks about the emotional impact and scarring that a child can have. They may not be killed by a parent, but they are forever altered. In the process. So we need to really care for those children as well, for those parents that, that are dealing with this right now. And it may not end in the same way, but there’s still a real challenge here. And, and Jordan, we do hear about parents that kill their children. 


Jordan We do hear about it. Mm-hmm.

Cynthia Mulligan It’s just that Jennifer has spoken so much about it and, and laid her soul bare, which is. Devastating for her to relive this over and over, but she doesn’t want Kira’s death to be in vain. But we do know that roughly 30 children every year in Canada are killed by a parent. And many times it was preventable because the warning signs were there. 


Cynthia Mulligan Is Kira’s case, one of the existing protocols just not working, not being enough or a case of the people who should have been following those protocols. Screwing up being bad at their jobs or both? I guess?

Jordan I think it’s both. You know, I was looking at a, a study in the US where it found that very often when a woman went to court and said that there was domestic violence in the marriage, it, it could work against her because the courts didn’t believe her. And at times, in many cases, they would lose the custody battle. Even though violence in the relationship by the father was acknowledged by the courts. So there are still old attitudes that still need to be tackled in terms of violence, coercive control, misogyny, and they’re still playing out in the courts because I think the, the more subtle areas in particular coercive control are not greatly understood. 


Jordan Tell me about what the report found that could have been done differently. There were lots of recommendations in it. What are they, and would they have made a difference?

Cynthia Mulligan Well, there are many recommendations. Largely it’s greater education. On course of control, domestic violence, greater education for everybody involved in the system, the lawyers, the judges, the children’s aid, uh, workers, as well as the assessors. I mean, there was an initial assessment, a parenting assessment by a psychiatrist who is quite well known and who is very experienced. Man couldn’t determine which parent was lying and which one was telling the truth. How common is that? Well, you know, I get a lot of emails and a lot of calls from frantic parents who say that the family courts are failing them. 


Jordan Let’s talk about Kira’s mother, Jennifer, for a moment. What’s it like to talk to her? You mentioned that she’s speaking so, uh, openly about this and she’s pushing for change.

Cynthia Mulligan Jennifer Kagan. I’ve spoken to Jennifer so many times and she is so driven to make change so that Kira’s death is not in vain. I think that is largely driving her right now and getting her through the agony of, of losing a child. It’s difficult for her to talk about. You can see how painful it is, and yet she still does it because she doesn’t want Kira to have died for nothing. She speaks to the media. She goes to conferences, she talks to lawyers. She’s started a women’s group so that she can help other women going through the court process who also have been abused. She started. Kira’s Law, which, and, and this is an incredible achievement in a short period of time, but it was passed in the House of Commons. Kira’s Law is calling for education for judges. So that they have a greater understanding of domestic violence and coercive control, so that when they are presented these cases, they can recognize them. That Bill is now before the Senate. The legislature at Queens Park also unanimously decided to adopt some of these recommendations after a private member’s bill from a, a conservative MPP, this is an incredible achievement. And it’s all been driven by Jennifer who’s doing this for the love of her daughter, so that Kira recognized and not forgotten. And she said to me in an interview last week that she can just imagine Kira saying, keep going, mom. Keep going.

Jordan Mm-hmm.

Cynthia Mulligan What strikes me when I listen to Jennifer Kagan is, is how intelligent and articulate she is. She’s a doctor. She’s married to a family law lawyer, and if these two couldn’t navigate this system, a family law lawyer.

Jordan Yeah.

Cynthia Mulligan What hope is there for anyone?

Jordan Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you at the end of this. You know, you’ve worked on this story tirelessly for a long time now. I know you’ve reported on other stories like this and you just mentioned to me that you get a ton of calls and emails from people, who were terrified navigating this system. In the biggest picture of all of this, as somebody who, who is on the receiving end of that, we’ve gone through a lot of recommendations. We’ve gone through what went wrong in this specific case. What’s the fundamental problem at the bottom of this?

Cynthia Mulligan Oh, I don’t know that there’s one Jordan. I, I just think that there needs to be a complete shift in understanding more education and an acknowledgement that domestic violence is a problem that is presented toward the courts and it needs to be understood. And I’m not saying that a parent who is abusive should never see their child. I don’t think anybody is saying that, but there needs to be a greater sense and, and awareness and protections put in place for this child, for any child. 


Jordan Is that the big link that’s missing in the courts? That link between domestic violence against the partner leading to, potential violence against the child. It seems like in a lot of cases that’s, that’s where a decision is not made. Right. But there is a clear link. I mean, if you look on, on the federal government’s website, it does state that there is a correlation, right? 
And, and that a domestic abuser is, is also likely to abuse a child. What does the research show that this is true, and yet it’s not always taken seriously in the courts.

Jordan Is it just a matter of old judges who haven’t caught up to what we know now?

Cynthia Mulligan You know, I’ve, I’ve often wondered that the judge that said that that abuse was not relevant has since retired. 


Jordan Hmm.

Cynthia Mulligan But I think coercive control is just so greatly. Because it’s invisible. And another problem in the courts, Jordan, is that it seems nobody was talking to each other. You had 10 different judges overseeing this case. One of the recommendations touches on that and says that there should only be one judge in a case like this. There should only be one judge overseeing the case so that it’s not like 10 is way too many. There’s no consistency.

Jordan Mm-hmm.

Cynthia Mulligan Another recommendation is, Kira should have had her own lawyer. Hmm. Fighting solely for her. Instead of lawyers fighting each other. One should have been fighting for her because her voice was lost in this. Nobody was listening to what Kira had to say, and yet she had to go for multiple doctor appointments because she was exhibiting signs of stress, like rashes, stomach problems. She was telling people there was a problem. But nobody in the system seemed to be listening and taking greater care for her.

Jordan So what’s next? 


Cynthia Mulligan We’re waiting to see if Kira’s Law will pass the Senate, and we’re waiting to see if there will indeed be an inquest, which should be announced soon. I I, I would imagine it should be announced soon. I mean, it’s been three years this week since Kira’s death, right? So it is expected that one way or another, Her death will be determined whether by a coroner or an inquest.

Jordan Cynthia, thanks for this. I wish I could say it was a pleasure, as it so often is, but this was a tough one. I appreciate all your work.

Cynthia Mulligan Thank you. It is a tough one. It’s horrifying, but we can’t look away from it. Thanks again.

Jordan Thank you, Cynthia Mulligan reporting for City News. That was the big story as I mentioned, talking to Cynthia, you can find all of her work on this@toronto.city news.ca. She’ll have more later today and on Friday. also@citynews.ca, you can find ongoing coverage of the tragedy at a daycare in lava Quebec. Too many children gone. If you want more from the big story, head to the big story podcast.ca. Find us on Twitter at the big story fpn right to us at hello at the big story podcast.ca. And you can call us and leave a voicemail. 4 1 16 9 3 5 5 9 3 5. The big story is available in every podcast player, and you can ask for it on a smart speaker by saying, play the Big Story podcast. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll have a more hopeful episode for you when we talk tomorrow.