REGINA - The family of a Regina woman found dead at the bottom of a hotel laundry chute is questioning how she fit through the chute door.
An inquest into the death of Nadine Machiskinic started Monday with police photos and testimony describing the chute opening as 53 centimetres wide.
Machiskinic was found at the bottom of the chute in January 2015.
An autopsy found she died of blunt force trauma after falling 10 storeys and the death was ruled accidental, with the coroner noting that the mother of four had drugs in her system.
Machiskinic's aunt, Delores Stevenson, wants to know how her niece fell through such a small opening.
Stevenson says she hopes the inquest will give her family the answers they need.
"The dimensions of the laundry chute - I'm not an expert but that looked like a pretty small laundry chute to start with. I'm just wondering how somebody could fit in that small, little laundry chute, manoeuvre their way ... how does somebody get into that little small space?" she said outside the inquest Monday.
"I hope that we'll get some truth, I hope that we'll get some answers."
Machiskinic's family has raised concerns that police were not taking her death seriously.
Const. Keith Malcolm told the inquest that police made an error when they delayed sending toxicology samples for testing for several months. Malcolm thought another officer in the forensics unit had sent the samples for testing and the other officer thought Malcolm had done it.
"Nobody's proud of their mistakes and this is why toxicology wasn't sent. It was human error," he said.
Malcolm says police have since changed procedures to avoid such mistakes in the future.
The inquest is scheduled to last all week.
