TORONTO -- If this is the last chapter of the Joe Grozelle mystery, it could also feel like the longest for his family.

Though the interrupted coroner's inquest into the 2003 death of the Ridgetown native won't restart until mid-March, it technically got back on track here yesterday at a five-hour hearing examining the scope of the probe and reminding the Grozelles just how complex the process can be.

"It's a long, drawn-out, tedious, expensive process that we shouldn't even be involved in at this point," Ron Grozelle, Joe's father, said.

But they are, and, as the original inquest was abruptly stopped in October after five days of testimony, they will now wait until March 19, when it begins again in Kingston.

The 21-year-old Grozelle was attending Royal Military College in that eastern Ontario city when he disappeared from his dorm room on Oct. 23, 2003, last seen by his then-girlfriend.

His body washed ashore on the Cataraqui River three weeks later. An expert has testified that he considers the cause of death "undetermined."

Yesterday, the Grozelle camp asked presiding coroner Dr. David Eden to add several new witnesses, including two people who claimed to have seen Joe after his disappearance.

They also want several more documents included from the investigations performed by the Kingston police, military police and coroner's office.

Lawyers for the Grozelle family, police and military spent much of the day discussing the relevance of the investigations to the inquest's objectives.

Inquests are designed to answer five questions -- including who died, how that person died and the nature of the death -- and learn the facts around that individual's death without assigning any blame. The jury can then make recommendations to help prevent similar deaths.

Bruce Carr-Harris, the Grozelles' lawyer, argued information from the police investigations is relevant and should be allowed.

"One benefit of doing the inquest would be to look at the way the investigations were done, if anything can be learned," he said.

"It's not a broad (study) of police, it's a direct look at why questions are answered or unanswered in Joe Grozelle's case."

But lawyers for the military and Kingston police disagreed and asked the motions be dismissed. They argued details of anything that happened after the body was recovered falls out of the inquest's scope.

"That line of questioning will not help the jury answer those five (prescribed) questions," said Brian Abrams, a lawyer for Kingston police.

"At the end of the day, this doesn't help us at all," Abrams said.

Eden reserved decision on the matter yesterday.

Barring another hearing, the next formal meeting will be March 19 in Kingston when the full coroner's inquest starts again from scratch. The inquest was stopped in October after five days on what Eden called "a matter of procedural fairness" that hasn't been made public.

The inquest is expected to last about six weeks.