Nine days later, staff at a rain forest retreat where she was staying called her parents to tell them the young woman had died, CBC News reports.
Logan’s younger sister Amy, who works in Toronto in a business affiliated with the Canadian Press, says they learned that her sister suffered a medical reaction after she drank tea in a ceremony with a shaman. Jennifer, 32, was transported by motorcycle and boat to a hospital but doctors were unable to revive her.
“We suspect the tea had a role” in her death, Amy Logan said. She and her mother and other relatives traveled to Peru to pick up her sister’s remains. The family also met with prosecutors and police, who said an investigation was underway. Officers interviewed staff at the retreat and confiscated the cup she drank from and the jug that the tea was poured from.
Initial autopsy results showed that she died from pulmonary edema, which causes fluid to accumulate in the lungs, and this can cause respiratory failure.
Logan had been staying at the Canto Luz Centre, an all-female retreat, Global News reports.
Her family is waiting to see if the tea is to blame. Amy Logan said that the retreat made a variety of teas for clients, but on Jan. 17, Jennifer Logan drank the tea, which is designed for purging and cleansing.
“The other three women in the group stopped vomiting within 15 minutes…Jennifer didn’t stop and began to panic,” Amy Logan said.
Logan lost consciousness. She was given first aid by the staff and then taken to the hospital, she said. She also added that the tea was not ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic drink that has become popular with tourists in the Amazon. Some deaths have been attributed to this drink.
Canto Luz, in an email sent to The Canadian Press, described the tea that Jennifer Logan drank as a “tobacco purge” and said that Logan’s reaction to it was “extreme and unusual.”
There are definitely more questions than answers, notes Morwenna Given, an herbalist based in Toronto.
“We don’t know the lady’s medical history, we don’t know the particular plant,” or how long it was steeped or how much she drank, Given said. “It’s very hard for us to make an assessment.”
Tobacco has high levels of nicotine, she added.
“It doesn’t take very much for a plant like this to work…it only takes about 60 milligrams to get a toxic dose,” she said. “Put it in a pot of tea and it isn’t very much.”
It isn’t known if Logan was taking prescription pills or any other medications that could have led to a fatal drug interaction.
“You should never use these substances as a tea…the risks are high and the benefits are low,” Given said.
Berdeena Logan, Jennifer’s mother, said that the trip to Peru was intense. Fortunately, the women brought along Berdeena’s nephew, who speaks Spanish. The Logans had a tough time obtaining permission to return home with Jennifer’s remains. Authorities wanted to keep the body in Peru for a year to provide physical proof in a murder investigation and exhume her if necessary, Logan said, The Star Phoenix reports.
“It was a very intense experience … We just had countless hurdles. And then the embassy stepped in at that point and really came through for us so we could bring her ashes home. We did what we had to do and we brought her home.”
Jennifer, who graduated from Aden Bowman high school, held a bachelor’s degree in geography and international studies from the University of Winnipeg and a master’s degree in geography from York University.
She traveled and worked with women and girls who were victims of sex trafficking in Nepal, and worked on housing issues while she attended university. As chair of World University Services of Canada, young Jennifer worked to provide scholarships for people in refugee camps, and when they arrived in Canada, she befriended and mentored them.
Logan traveled in Canada, Tibet, Thailand, Europe, India, and Saudi Arabia.
“She had done a lot of things,” Berdeena Logan said. “She had been in India for a couple of years and she had been in ashrams in silent meditation and had taken yoga for several weeks up in the mountains of India.”
“She was a seeker and a searcher always. She was so committed to making a difference. This offered indigenous plants, you could go in the jungle and (there was) naturopathic healing. But she was a very healthy person. This was just in pursuit of knowledge, natural.”
“She liked to investigate things like that, just had no prejudices, formed her own opinions as she went along,” her father Fraser Logan said.
Staff at Canto Luz have been kind and have apologized, Amy Logan said, per CBC News. The Logans are not seeking retribution, but they do want their questions answered.
The shaman at the retreat has 20 years of experience, the Centre said in the email. People are given full disclosure about activities and must provide written consent. It is not accepting visitors while it deals with the tragedy.
We “are devastated by this reminder of the power of nature, both for life and death, and the absoluteness of life deep in the Amazon rain forest” it said in the statement.
