More than two years after her daughter was killed, this mother still can't get information from RCMP

WARNING: This story contains graphic details of violence.

There are times when Rose Marie Smith's daughter, Lisa, is at the forefront of her mind: on Lisa's birthday, her kids' birthdays, the anniversary of her death.

More than two years have passed since Lisa was shot and killed at her workplace by a man she briefly dated, who then took his own life.

"When I think of her, I can still see that little girl, running in the field," Smith said in an interview from her Halifax-area home, where Lisa's framed photo and a candle sit on a table in the living room.

But the passage of time hasn't helped Smith get clearer answers to questions about why her daughter, a mother of three, was killed that day in Pointe-Sapin, a small fishing community in eastern New Brunswick. If anything, it's strengthened her resolve.

She still wonders whether other people picked up on red flags and reported those to the police.

Smith has been told her daughter was harassed by the perpetrator at their shared workplace, after deciding she didn't want to date him anymore, but she was reluctant to go to police because she felt she could handle things herself.

Smith also wants accountability for how a man with a history of violence against women, who was prohibited from possessing firearms, managed to get a gun that day.

But she has been unable to get those answers from the RCMP, which investigated the crime. She's barely been able to get the force to talk to her at all.

Lisa's death is one of nearly 400 cases studied by CBC's investigative team as part of Deadly Relationships, a sweeping, six-month CBC News investigation examining intimate partner homicides over a five-year period across Canada. Her family's experience raises questions about the transparency of police agencies and government bodies that investigate these cases.

Police have refused to even acknowledge what happened as intimate partner violence, telling CBC News in 2020 that more couldn't be said because charges wouldn't be laid, since the perpetrator is dead.

"There's no accountability," Smith said.

"Nobody's willing to take responsibility. There's no transparency, for sure. So closure in any sense hasn't happened yet. It has not happened because we don't know anything."

For the first time, in a response to an access to information request sent to CBC News earlier this year as part of the Deadly Relationships investigation, the RCMP included Lisa's name on a list of victims of intimate partner violence homicide.