Life and death of ashley smith, the

A seemingly normal child, Ashley Smith fell into an abyss as a teen. Locked up at 15, the New Brunswick girl spent most of her youth in solitary confinement until, at age 19, she choked herself to death while on suicide watch in a federal prison, with guards standing by as she took her last breaths. In a new ebook, The Life and Death of Ashley Smith, two Star journalists who covered the story, Donovan Vincent and Diana Zlomislic, synthesize testimony from her inquest and facts gathered in their own reporting in an attempt to make sense of an individual and family tragedy that became a national shame.