Quebec coroner says Fritznel Richard died of drowning, hypothermia

Fritznel Richard, the 44-year-old Haitian man who was found dead in 2023 after trying to cross into the United States, likely experienced hypothermia before drowning in shallow water. 

Coroner Andre-H. Dandavino says Richard was found on Jan. 4, 2023 in a ditch containing 45 centimetres of water near the U.S. border in St-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que.

The report says Richard had been living in Montreal for two years but wanted to join his wife in the United States, and attempted to cross the border on foot through some fields on Dec. 23, 2022.

Richard was attempting to reunite with his wife and his toddler, who had recently moved back to Florida ahead of him, after struggling to make ends meet in Montreal. 

He waited months to receive a work permit from the Canadian government, but there was a serious backlog at the time. After waiting for nearly two years for it, he decided to hire a smuggler to help him cross the border on foot back into the U.S. 

Richard tried to delay the crossing when weather reports called for a severe snow storm, but in interviews with CBC News in 2023, his wife Guenda said the smuggler had refused. 

“This is what this person does,” she said. “It’s a job for them.”

Richard had called her from the border, saying, “I’m dying, I love you.”

Dandavino’s report noted the call, in which Richard had told Guenda he was cold, tired and his legs and feet were frozen. Moments later, the report said, she heard him fall and the line cut out. 

Dandavino says Richard was dressed warmly but probably suffered from hypothermia, which could have led to him losing consciousness and drowning.

He ruled the death accidental, adding that it highlights the danger of trying to cross the border in rural areas outside of official crossings.

Frantz André, who has for more than a decade helped asylum seekers make refugee claims in Canada, travelled to Naples, Fla., to deliver Richard’s ashes to Guenda in January 2023. He attended Richard’s funeral on Jan. 28, 2023. 

Reached by phone Wednesday, André said the trip had been one of the hardest things he’d done in his life. 

“I have to admit it’s very difficult for me to read this report because his story really affected me,” said André, who keeps in regular contact with Guenda and said that she is finding life difficult without Richard. 

Pressure ‘on both sides’ of the border

Since 2022, the number of irregular crossings from Canada into the United States has increased by more than 500 per cent, according to U.S. Border Patrol. The rise in crossings have prompted President Donald Trump, who was inaugurated into office Monday, to threaten Canada with steep tariffs if it does not do more to prevent people from migrating southward. 

But André believes the opposite will happen because of Trump’s promise to deport millions of people already living in the U.S. Trump had made similar promises during his first term in office, which prompted roughly 40,000 people to make asylum claims in Canada in 2017 after crossing on foot at Roxham Road. 

In early 2023, months after Richard died, former president Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau renegotiated the Safe Third Country Agreement, which had allowed asylum seekers to cross into Canada on foot. The agreement now limits the people who can do so to unaccompanied minors and people who can cross undetected for 14 days. 

The pressure on both sides of the border, André says, has caused dangerous situations for asylum seekers and led to a significant rise in illegal smuggling networks. 

“There are more smuggling networks now than when Fritznel was alive,” he said. “Roxham Road was open and people could cross safely. But now, the problem is on both sides. From north to south and south to north.”