Jailed addict threatened suicide, inquest told

"If I don't get my methadone the next time you come around, you'll find me dead 'cuz I will kill myself."

That chilling threat was among the final words uttered by a frail Keigo White to guards at the Toronto (Don) Jail before they found him in his cell, unconscious, with a ligature around his neck, a coroner's inquest heard yesterday.

In an audio recording, Shaun Hall, whose cell was next to White's when the two were incarcerated there in October 2006, recalled for a police officer some of the Toronto man's final waking moments. "Every time a guard went by (White would) just say, `Where's my meth? When am I getting my meth? You can't leave me like this?'"

However, Hall also said he wasn't certain if the guards had heard White's threat of suicide.

"I heard (White) on the toilet getting sick very often, all day long," Hall told Det. Const. Tanya Bronsema. "He wouldn't come out of his cell, wouldn't eat, wouldn't drink nothing. ... He was sick as a dog."

The five-person jury heard that White, a 40-year-old former heroin addict, was found without a pulse. He was revived but remained in a vegetative state and died nearly three months later.

Although Hall had been subpoenaed to testify, he didn't show up. Instead, jurors listened to the interview he gave police.

White's cellmate at the time, Jose Rocha, testified he was asleep when White hung himself and never heard him threaten suicide.

"The jail could've prevented it," said Rocha. "If he wanted methadone, they should've given him methadone."

The inquest resumes today.