Group home employee testifies he doesn't recall checking the closet where Cree teen was found dead

WARNING: This story contains distressing details. 

The group home employee who reported Traevon Chalifoux-Desjarlais missing testified that he searched the teen's bedroom but couldn't recall if he ever looked in the closet where his body was eventually found.

"Obviously I did not check well enough because I didn't find him," said Murray McMaster, speaking at the Coroner's Inquest into the death of the Cree teen.

Traevon's body was found hanging in the closet on Sept. 18, 2020, four days after McMaster reported the 17-year-old missing to the Ministry of Children and Family Development's after-hours reporting line, and three days after McMaster filed a missing persons report with Abbotsford police. 

McMaster testified that when he came on shift at around 8 a.m. on Sept. 14, he didn't see Traevon and assumed he was still in bed. Brett Claxton, the worker McMaster took over from, testified Traevon had made a grilled cheese sandwich at 10:30 p.m. the night before. 

McMaster said when he went to get Traevon up at around noon on Sept 14, he observed Traevon wasn't in his bed. At 10 p.m. that night, after not being able to locate Traevon, McMaster left a message on the MCFD reporting line. The following day at 2 p.m., he filed a missing person's report with Abbotsford police. 

McMaster testified he checked Traevon's bedroom on Sept. 15 and Sept. 16, but didn't find anything. He said he also sent fellow group home worker, Geoff Holley, to check the room.

On Sept. 17, McMaster said he started noticing a smell and wondered if there was a dead animal in the holes Traevon had made in his bedroom walls. 

"That's when I started searching other areas of the house, the boiler room ... under the stairs," he said.

The court heard that McMaster requested a dump run on the morning of Sept. 18 to dispose of items that might be causing the smell. 

That same morning, two Abbotsford Police officers came to the group home without being called there. McMaster informed the officers of the smell and they went to the bedroom and immediately found Traevon's body in the closet.

McMaster was asked why he declined to say Traevon was a suicide risk when he called in the missing person report. He responded that previous attempts to have Traevon apprehended under the mental health act had failed. 

"When I called APD when he did ideate suicide, they did not apprehend him so [I felt] it was not legitimate," he said. 

The court heard about an incident on Aug. 28, 2020, when Chalifoux-Desjarlais mentioned he might cut his wrists after he had destroyed his mattress and sheets with something sharp.