REMEMBERING MEIKA

Meika Dawn Jordan was six years old when she died. She was a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter and a little girl whose family should have had decades more with her. Meika lived primarily with her mother, Kyla Woodhouse, and her stepfather. In November 2011, she went to spend a weekend with her biological father, Spencer Jordan, and his common-law partner, Marie-Eve Magoon, at their home in Calgary. Supreme Court of Canada It was supposed to be a visit. Meika should have returned home when the weekend was over. Instead, her mother would spend the final moments of Meika's life beside her in a hospital. Meika was only six. Nothing about what happened during that weekend should be allowed to overshadow the little girl who existed before it.

MEIKA’S STORY

Meika spent the weekend of November 11, 2011, at her father's home in Calgary's Temple neighborhood. During that weekend, Spencer Jordan and Marie-Eve Magoon subjected her to escalating abuse that they characterized as discipline. The Supreme Court of Canada later found that Meika was deliberately burned, forced to run repeatedly up and down stairs for hours and severely beaten when the adults believed she was not complying with their demands. The punishment continued over several days. Meika suffered a severe burn to her hand. She was repeatedly struck in her abdomen and suffered damage to her internal organs. She also sustained at least five serious blows to her head. The injuries were catastrophic. Her pancreas was lacerated. Her liver was torn. She suffered a subdural hematoma and severe swelling of her brain. There was extensive bruising across her body. Her hair was matted and broken, with clumps missing.  Despite the seriousness of Meika's condition, Jordan and Magoon did not immediately obtain medical treatment for her. On Sunday, November 13, Meika finally lost consciousness. Only then were emergency services called. Paramedics arrived at the home and found Meika unconscious and without a pulse. They were able to resuscitate her and rushed her to Alberta Children's Hospital. Jordan and Magoon initially claimed that Meika had fallen down the stairs. They also offered an accidental explanation for the serious burn on her hand. The medical evidence told a very different story.  Meika's injuries could not be explained by a simple fall. Doctors recognized signs of severe child abuse shortly after she arrived at the hospital. Despite their efforts to save her, Meika's injuries were too severe. On November 14, 2011, Meika died at Alberta Children's Hospital. She was six years old.  Her death was determined to be a homicide caused by multiple blunt force trauma.  The investigation into Meika's death continued for months. Police eventually used an undercover operation in which both Jordan and Magoon made incriminating statements about what had happened to Meika. Those statements became part of the evidence presented against them at trial.  The truth was no longer that Meika had accidentally fallen down the stairs. She had endured days of deliberate abuse at the hands of the two adults responsible for caring for her.

WARNING SIGNS

Meika's injuries did not result from a single moment of violence. The abuse unfolded over several days. During that time, she suffered a serious burn, repeated blows, extensive bruising and increasingly severe internal and head injuries. Even as her condition deteriorated, she was not taken for medical treatment. Instead, the punishments continued. The Supreme Court of Canada ultimately concluded that Jordan and Magoon had unlawfully confined Meika while subjecting her to the abuse that caused her death. That confinement became legally significant because murder committed during unlawful confinement can constitute first degree murder under Canadian law.  I did not find sufficiently documented evidence in the court records establishing a prior child protection failure that directly preceded Meika's death.

For that reason, Meika's page should not create a system failure where one has not been established. The warning signs existed inside the home. The adults who saw Meika's injuries were the same adults causing them.

JUSTICE FOR MEIKA

Spencer Jordan and Marie-Eve Magoon were prosecuted for Meika's death. Following a five week trial, both were convicted of second degree murder in June 2015. They were initially sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for seventeen years. But that was not the end of Meika's case. The Crown appealed, arguing that the circumstances of Meika's unlawful confinement required convictions for first degree murder. In December 2016, the Alberta Court of Appeal agreed and substituted first degree murder convictions for both defendants. Jordan and Magoon appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. On November 27, 2017, Canada's highest court unanimously dismissed their appeals. Written reasons released in April 2018 confirmed the first degree murder convictions. Under Canadian law, a first degree murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for twenty five years.

 

Spencer Lee Jordan

Relationship to Meika: Father

Conviction: First degree murder

Sentence: Life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for 25 years

 

Marie-Eve Magoon

Relationship to Meika: Stepmother

Conviction: First degree murder

Sentence: Life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for 25 years

FOREVER REMEMBERED

Meika's case eventually traveled all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Judges examined evidence. Lawyers argued over murder classifications, unlawful confinement and criminal responsibility. Court decisions documented the injuries inflicted on Meika with extraordinary precision. Those records were necessary to hold the people responsible for her death accountable. But Meika was never supposed to become a Supreme Court case. She was supposed to be a little girl growing up. At six years old, there was so much about her life that had not happened yet. There should have been more school pictures. More birthdays. More friendships. More ordinary weekends that ended with Meika returning safely home. Instead, one weekend changed everything. Meika survived long enough to reach the hospital, but the injuries inflicted upon her were too severe. Her mother was able to be with her before she died. What followed was a legal fight lasting years, ultimately ending with Canada's highest court affirming that both adults responsible for what happened to Meika were guilty of first degree murder. Justice cannot return those stolen years. It cannot give Meika another birthday. It cannot allow her mother to watch her daughter grow from a six year old child into the woman she might have become. But it can preserve the truth. Meika did not die because she fell down a staircase. She died because she was deliberately and repeatedly abused by the adults who were supposed to care for her. Her name deserves to remain separate from theirs. She was Meika Dawn Jordan. She was six years old. Her life mattered far beyond the terrible circumstances of her death. Abuse Angels remembers Meika Dawn Jordan.  Remembered. Honored. Never Forgotten.