generalspeaking

Deprived of Life, Their Murderer Given Liberty

"Any expansion of privileges will occur at a very slow pace and close supervision is warranted,”
“The board is of the view that significantly more time is required to evaluate and test the potential for relapse."
"Should he relapse and reoffend… the violence is likely to be unexpected, rapid, extreme and with multiple victims."
"The family members of the victims are in considerable pain. For most, the process of attending hearings annually serves as a painful reminder."
Alberta Review Board

Matthew de Grood killed five people in Calgary on April 15, 2014 (Canadian Press)

"The board re-emphasized the distinct threat de Grood presents to the public, and noted his loss of insight to symptoms when his oral medication was stopped for a time, but still sided with unsupervised access to the community and week-long travel in Alberta."
Greg Perras, father of Kaitlin

A scene of unimaginable horror occurred in 2014, when 22-year-old Matthew de Grood walked into a house in Calgary in the midst of a party celebrating the end of the school year. He had a knife and he used it unsparingly on the young university students who were there to share their happiness with one another, but ended up in a group of dead young people, murdered by a man who testified at trial that he believe the devil was in communication with him, informing him a war bringing the end of the world was about to erupt.

That, evidently, gave him the impetus to kill five people, Zackariah Rathwell, 21; Jordan Segura, 22; Kaitlin Perras, 23; Josh Hunter, 23; and Lawrence Hong, 27. A subsequent trial two years later found him not guilty of the murder of those five young people. As someone held to be not criminally responsible he was being treated in several hospitals, the last at Alberta Hospital in Edmonton for the year just past, where he has been given unsupervised outings -- though, according to the Albert Review Board, he remains a significant threat to public safety.

Despite which his treatment team has decided he should be given even greater liberties, and he will be permitted to visit locations in Edmonton without any supervision, granted overnight passes for up to a week. All this, to give him experience in negotiating society and his place in it, for the purpose of aiding him in the transition to life in a group home. In addition, he has been given permission to travel within the province of Alberta for up to a week, while under the supervision of a responsible adult. The goal of transferring him to a group home in Edmonton, is to be accomplished within the space of a year.

Now 29 years of age, and years since he stabbed the five young people to death in a situation expert psychiatrists classify as a psychotic break. Dr. Santoch Rai spoke of the risk of a violent relapse as "low", even while he added should a relapse occur, it could be expected to be of a "high severity". Perhaps that is also the descriptive given to the scene all those years ago, when he dispatched the lives of five people. He is, in other words, a psychiatric time bomb whose mental condition is for the time being under control, without guarantees possible that the wick may be lit and the bomb explode at any given time.

Dr. Rai, however is satisfied that his patient has made "very good progress", since his last annual review a year ago, and has been since then a "model patient". The board had moved de Grood from Calgary to Edmonton a year ago for additional treatment, where his independence had been increased while being treated. And the strange thing is that the board chair stressed that privileges for this man would be granted only when the team feels it is safe to do so. How that assurance can be trusted when his own doctor sits on the fence over his potential to explode into another vicious psychopathic rage of lethal intent is questionable.

From left: Zackariah Rathwell, Lawrence Hong, Kaitlin Perras, Jordan Segura and Joshua Hunter were stabbed to death April 15 while celebrating the end of post-secondary classes. (Photos from Facebook)

Labels: Crisis Management, Defence, Independence, Mental Health, Murder, Not Criminally Responsible, Penalties

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, October 03, 2019