Toronto mom wants answers after 14-year-old daughter dies in mysterious circumstances

A grieving Toronto mother is looking for answers after her 14-year-old daughter died in mysterious circumstances last month — a death that could be part of a toxic drug crisis that is claiming the lives of an increasing number of children.

Shasta Nolan said as the Toronto Police Service have opted not to pursue a criminal investigation, she is reaching out and hoping others will contact her to paint a picture of the last hours of her daughter Kaylee Gillard’s life.

“I’m always telling her I love her,” said Nolan amid tears in an interview, showing off shifts and cards her friends and family had made for Kaylee’s funeral earlier this month. “She’s my angel. I know who my real angel is now.”

Nolan and her family don’t know how Kaylee got from her home in Etobicoke to the Toronto Public Housing Building in Scarborough where her body was found just after noon on Nov. 21. She had told her family she was going to meet her friends to do her nails.

Toronto police and paramedics confirmed they were called to Ellesmere Road and Midland Avenue at 12:39 for reports of an overdose. Nolan says Kaylee was taken to Scarborough Hospital, but was pronounced deceased.

Doctors told her they found traces of fentanyl in her body — an opioid that is often irregularly mixed in with other drugs, meaning the potency of whatever drug is ingested can be unpredictable. The Coroner is working on a precise cause of death.

"We need people to step up and take responsibility for this 14-year-old girl's life," said Kaylee's dad, Byrone Gillard, in a phone call from where he lives in Newfoundland. He said she had stayed with him before returning to Toronto a few weeks ago, saying she missed her friends.

The City of Toronto, which runs the housing complex, said, “The City is aware of the recent tragic death of a female youth visitor to the Birkdale Residence and our thoughts are with all those who loved and cared for her. The City will work with Toronto Police as they investigate.”

But Toronto police tell CTV News Toronto it doesn’t consider the case suspicious, saying, “As with all sudden deaths, the circumstances have been investigated and it has been deemed a non-criminal incident with no foul play. The Coroner then continued with her work … there is no TPS criminal investigation.”

The Ontario coroner says there have been 53 minors who died from overdoses since 2019. Of those, 15 were Kaylee’s age -- 14 -- or younger.

The City of Toronto has asked the federal government to decriminalize hard drugs for personal use within the city’s boundaries, with the hope that if anyone does use, they won’t do so in secret.

The City of Vancouver and the province of British Columbia have also asked for an exemption under the controlled drugs and substances act.

Nolan supports that idea because she hopes it will bring any drug use out into the open. But she also believes that the drug dealers, or whoever abandoned Kaylee that night, should also face justice.

In B.C. in 2019, Mounties did charge someone with manslaughter after a 14-year-old boy named Carson Crimeni overdosed.

“These needs to stop. The world needs to see that you guys are killing young children,” Nolan said. 

She’s asking anyone who knows anything about the case to come forward to her — or to the police.