"My daughter, we were in the bedroom, I was in the bedroom and she was eating bread and she choked and she is dead."
Ryan later found out Irving had a shower and a beer before dialling the emergency number. Her actions would lead the investigators to think something just wasn’t adding up.
"With most homicide investigations, what I try to do, is get to the 911 tape as quickly as we can to listen to it to get some idea or feel for the investigation."
This investigation would be no different and immediately Ryan had concerns that this was not a real cry for help.
"On that tape she is crying, I hesitate to use that word because it was all concocted, but she is making it appear as though she’s crying. Now in fairness she may have been crying for her own self preservation because she is now stuck with this body in her apartment and they have a story in place that is not going to be believable," Ryan said.
Irving's common-law partner, Warren Johnson, claimed he was not in the apartment at the time Irving made the call, but Ryan says they found security video from the building showing Johnson leaving with her two children shortly after the 911 call is made. This would lead the investigators to charge both with second-degree murder.
For this week's episode of The Detective, Ryan went back to the scene of the crime. He said that this is the first time he's been back since 2008.
"There are certain cases you just never forget. Obviously, this is one of them, it has a tremendous impact on your life in general, the after effects of doing this type of work. So being here again, it is tough because all those emotions come back, all those injuries on that child's body, all of what we worried about in terms of this investigation, all comes back when you walk through these doors again."
With Katelynn's body removed, the investigators obtained a search warrant for the apartment. It would take just minutes to conclude this was no accident, it was murder.
"So when we executed a search warrant on that apartment, there was blood in the bathroom," Ryan said.
It didn't make sense that Irving had told police she had taken a shower and yet there was blood on the floor.
"That is where I believe she died, in that bathroom. In the bedroom, there was a hockey net and there was a bowl of chicken soup," Ryan said.
And it would get worse for the seasoned cop as he would learn more about the horrible world this helpless girl was living in.
"If you saw the extent of her injuries, you would understand why she hadn’t been seen by anybody."
Her school was right across the street from her building, but for months prior to Katelynn's murder, she had not been to class.
Nobody checked up on her.
"And that is ironic, and I think about it to this day. You look at how close the school is to where she lived. Donna would call the school to say Katelynn is not feeling well today, she fell off her bike, there were all kinds of excuses and that was it, it is a 30 second walk if that, to go bang on her door. If someone knocked on Katelynn’s door she would be alive today. There is no doubt in my mind, but nobody checked on her at all."
Irving and Johnson both pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and are serving life sentences. But after their convictions, an inquest was held into how Katelynn fell through the cracks, her case bounced between Children’s Aid and Native Child and Family services.
The former director of the latter says much has changed.
