TORONTO - A young woman who choked herself to death in an Ontario prison often tied ligatures around her neck because she liked how it felt, not because she wanted to hurt herself, but a week before her death despair set in, a coroner's inquest heard Wednesday.

Ashley Smith, 19, choked herself to death with a strip of cloth on Oct. 19, 2007 at Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont. She was kept in near-constant segregation after she was first jailed in 2003.

Correctional manager Janice Sandeson told the inquest Smith said she tied cloth or other material around her neck to feel something.

"It caused a sensation for her and that's why she did it," Sandeson said. "Ashley's like, 'I'm not trying to kill myself. I just do this for the feeling."'

But Smith changed on Oct. 12, 2007, a week before she died, Sandeson said. Smith had been to court and had more time added to her sentence. When she returned, she said she wanted to kill herself, Sandeson said.

"This hopelessness came over her," she said. "(She said) she can't stop grabbing people and she can't stop behaving this way so all she could foresee was a future of her getting extra time because she could not stop herself from essentially assaulting people around her."

Sandeson, who is now an assistant warden of operations at Warkworth Institution, said no "mental health label" was attached to Smith's file when she was first transferred to Grand Valley.

The inquest heard Tuesday that various assessments throughout Smith's time in custody as a young offender came up with many different mental health diagnoses, including oppositional defiance disorder, conduct disorder and borderline personality disorder.

Sandeson said she never saw Smith make a ligature, but that when she returned from a period at a mental health facility, she had made some out of towels and security blankets and hid them in body cavities.

"Ms. Smith, as the terminology goes, had them hooped....she had inserted them in her vaginal cavity and pulled them out when and if she desired to use them," Sandeson said. "If someone hides something in their vaginal cavity they could have that there for a very long period of time and a very large amount. That's probably something most people don't understand is the amount of items people can keep in the area."

The coroner's jury was shown a video Wednesday of Grand Valley guards trying to coax Smith to hand over pieces of blanket she ripped up in her cell.