A Canadian girl who made international headlines when she was born on a flight to Japan in 2015 was found dead in 2020 after months of shocking neglect and abuse, according to newly unsealed court documents.
Chloe Guan-Branch’s lifeless body was found in her soiled bed in Ottawa on May 15, 2020, just after her fifth birthday.
Authorities said she suffered intense pain for days due to an abdominal injury and that her mother refused to take her to the hospital because Chloe was already covered in bruises.
Her abuser, her mother’s ex-boyfriend Justin Cassie-Berube, was convicted of manslaughter, criminal negligence causing death, failing to provide the necessaries of life, assault causing bodily harm and assault, according to the CBC.
The disturbing details of the case had been kept under a publication ban until last week after the CBC and The Ottawa Citizen successfully fought the ban in court.
Chloe was born on Mothers Day in 2015 while on a flight from Calgary to Japan. The unique birth was global news, with stories featuring her mother Ada Guan, and her biological father, Wes Branch.
Guan told reporters at the time that she had no idea that she was pregnant.
Months after she was born, Chloe was taken away from her parents and put in the care of the Children’s Aid Society over concerns about the couple fighting. Guan and Branch split up soon after and became estranged.
Chloe was returned to her mother when she was three years old, and in Feb. 2019, Guan and her daughter moved to Ottawa to live with her new boyfriend, Cassie-Berbue.
Cassie-Berbue was manipulative and abusive, according to court documents, and would threaten to kill himself if she ever left.
In Aug. 2019, a neighbor first noticed bruises on Chloe’s arms. Then around Christmas time, the same neighbor recalled seeing the child with a “bruised and banged up” face, she testified.
A text message from November 2019 recovered by police shows Guan telling Cassie-Berbue to not hurt Chloe’s face.
“I just don’t wanna see her face all bruised and f—ed up no more,” she wrote. “I don’t wanna go out and have to cover her face up just cause there’s marks on it. That’s suspicious.”
Guan testified Cassie-Berbue “grabbed [Chloe] and tossed her around, spanked her, put soap in her mouth, smacked her lips and face, threw her on the bed, squeezed her ankles, grabbed her forearm, yanked her forward, and hit her on top of the head with a wooden spoon” over the course of their 15-month relationship.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chloe was further isolated and “essentially alone” at home with Guan and Cassie-Berbue, where the abuse worsened.
Chloe suffered a ruptured bladder on May 9, 2020, a day before her fifth birthday.
Cassie-Berbue called police on May 15 after he found Chloe not breathing in her bed after days of agonizing pain.
A forensic pathologist confirmed that she died of blunt force trauma to her bladder.
She had a hard stomach, had been vomiting, unable to keep food down and soiling herself before she died. Guan testified that Chloe became so sick in her final days she had to be carried to the bathroom.
Authorities noted that she had a “shocking” number of bruises and injuries — which is why Guan and Cassie Berbue never took her for treatment despite needing “imperative” medical attention.
Chloe also had several obvious bruises on her face and throughout her body that “were not from a simple fall,” multiple healed rib fractures, and possible cigarette burns near her waist, the forensic pathologist testified.
A number of cuts and bruises dated from when she was already suffering from the bladder rupture.
Her cause of death was determined to be acute uremia — a condition that causes severe pain and induces nausea and vomiting as waste gets into the bloodstream.
Cassie-Berbue admitted to violently beating the girl, but said he did not punch her in the abdomen. Investigators were not able to determine if the rupture was caused by fists or from a fall, as he told police.
In the two months before her death, Cassie-Berbue said he would often drink to the point of blacking out.
During his conviction on March 1, a judge said Cassie-Berube was “not believable when he attempted to minimize his role” in Chloe’s death.
He “contradicted himself numerous times, admitted that he lied on occasion, and at times grossly embellished parts of his narrative,” the judge said.
His sentencing hearing has been scheduled for May 24.
