WARNING: This story contains details of child abuse.
Ada Guan, the woman convicted of manslaughter in her five-year-old daughter’s death in Ottawa, is now wanted on a Canada-wide warrant after failing to appear in court multiple times in preparation for sentencing.
Chloe Guan-Branch, 5, was found dead in her bedroom in May 2020, days after her fifth birthday, after suffering abuse and neglect. She had suffered a bladder rupture about a week earlier and was not taken for medical care.
Guan’s boyfriend, Justin Cassie-Berube, was also convicted in Chloe’s death. A Superior Court judge found him guilty of criminal negligence causing death, failing to provide the necessaries of life, assault causing bodily harm and assault. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Guan then struck a deal and pleaded guilty in Superior Court to a single charge of manslaughter, appearing virtually from Calgary where she had been living.
She admitted that as Guan-Branch’s mother she had a duty to provide the necessaries of life, and that she failed to do so and live up to her legal responsibilities when she knew her daughter was suffering and needed help.
When Guan entered her plea in August 2024, her sentencing was expected to take place a few months later.
This was to allow the defence to obtain a report about how intimate partner violence-related trauma inflicted on Guan “at Cassie-Berube’s hands” lessens the severity of Guan’s guilt, her lawyer Diane Magas told court.
After months of delays a sentencing hearing was scheduled for June 17 in Ottawa, and Guan was ordered to show up in court in person.
But she didn’t appear in person or by video conference, and Magas told court the sentencing report had not been done.
The judge adjourned the hearing and ordered Guan to appear virtually in July. Neither Guan nor Magas appeared then, and a trial co-ordinator told court it looked like counsel had agreed to adjourn to August to set a date in the fall for the sentencing hearing. The judge adjourned again and ordered Guan to appear in court virtually in August.
Again, Guan did not show up. Magas told court the report would be available by the end of September, and that the sentencing hearing could happen “in October or thereafter.”
As for why Guan didn’t attend, Magas said that “part of it is my fault. I just tried to reach out to her yesterday to confirm that she attends today, and I’ve not been able to reach her yesterday to this morning. There is a time difference also….I’ll make sure that she attends at the next [appearance].”
In court on Friday, where Guan had once again been ordered to show up virtually, Magas told the judge she hadn’t heard anything from Guan since late June. She said Guan hasn’t responded to repeated texts, and that she’s unable to find Guan.
Superior Court Justice Julianne Parfett then issued the Canada-wide bench warrant at the request of the Crown.
Magas declined to comment to CBC on Friday.
Guan-Branch’s birth in 2015 was an international sensation, happening aboard a plane during a flight from Vancouver to Japan. Her parents had no idea they were expecting, and it happened on Mother’s Day, of all days.
Child welfare authorities in B.C. took her away from her parents when she was three months old, and she wasn’t returned to Guan until three years later.
By May of 2020, the girl was living with Guan and Cassie-Berube in an Ottawa apartment. Her bladder ruptured in unclear circumstances and over the following days her condition worsened to the point that she was frequently soiling her bed, moaning in pain and could no longer walk.
After her death, Guan and Cassie-Berube were both charged with manslaughter, criminal negligence causing death, failing to provide the necessaries of life, assault and assault causing bodily harm, and both were released on bail.
