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
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| Matthew de Grood killed five people in Calgary on April 15, 2014 (Canadian Press) |
"We must help create awareness for the
problems with the NCR reintegration process and continue to push for a
law amendment where [people found] NCR… at a minimum, never receive an
absolute discharge where no responsible medical practitioners monitor
their medicine intake."
"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.
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| 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
Rehabilitating a Reluctant Bi-polar Killer
"[Escobedo-Hoyo accepts his bipolar disorder diagnosis, knows he must accept medication but he remains] closed off, [quiet and] guarded."
"Given his legal training and legal knowledge he might be a little bit more aware of legal strategy and how to present himself at times."
"He's guarded because he's being strategic [wishing to present himself in] the most positive light possible."
"It's difficult for us [medical staff involved in his medical protocol] to know what he really thinks. He has an illness that will require active medication management for the rest of his life."
"[He says he doesn't want to use [illegal drugs] substances again but that's a] superficial answer [and] it's hard to know if he'll do what he says."
Dr. Joel Watts, forensic psychiatrist, Royal Ottawa Hospital
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| Nick Hickey was walking down the sidewalk of his Bells Corners
neighbourhood | in January 2018 when he was struck and killed by a car.
The driver of that car, Guillermo Escobedo-Hoyo, was found not
criminally responsible Friday. (Supplied) |
In other words, a belligerent man who is quite aware that he suffers from a malignant mental illness whose effects can send him into random psychosis where he will commit violently lethal acts against perfect strangers will not commit to the kind of ongoing treatment that includes mood stabilizers and anti-psychotic medication. He will not, in effect, take responsibility for his condition, much less what that condition spells in danger to the general public.
He is not open with the medical staff attempting to guide him toward a place of moderate balance to enable him to get on with his life, and they are left in a limbo of puzzled expectation. As such, he remains a potential threat to society. He was just such a threat when he deliberately and with a malice that justice ascribes to a mental condition, took the life of a 17-year-old Nick Hickey just walking in his neighbourhood in 2018, when he was lethally rammed by a car driven by Guillermo Escobedo-Hoyo.
The boy was striding along the sidewalk when Escobedo-Hoyo aimed his vehicle directly toward the boy and ran him over, reversed, hit a truck, stripped naked and then smashed an OC Transpo bus window with terrified passengers watching from within, going on to invade the home of a senior where he demanded a gun, and was finally located when police discovered him inside a neighbour's parked Jeep.
Nick Hickey's ribs, brain stem and spinal cord had been crushed; he died almost immediately from blunt force trauma.
This man's state of mind precluded his knowing what he was doing, according to a finding by a criminal court. He had no idea what he was doing was legal, or that it represented a horrific moral crime. The man has a law degree. He left his native Mexico for Canada, claiming he needed refuge, he was escaping an unstable and dangerous hometown. His family, on the other hand, has a different viewpoint, that the area is entirely safe. In Canada since 2013, he had a work visa to allow him to be employed as a paralegal.
Dr. Watts's concern is that if Escobedo-Hoyo were to abruptly refrain from taking his medication he might once again exhibit bipolar symptoms in the passage of a few days. And to exacerbate the situation, if he decided to begin again using drugs as he had in the past, the symptoms of psychosis would be bumped forward. The medical professionals at the hospital would like the man to begin addiction treatment.
This would move him forward to a rehabilitation unit where he could be discharged into the community in the space of a year. Escobedo-Hoyo informed the doctors who assessed his condition and diagnosed him as not criminally responsible that this was the diagnosis he wanted to be enabled to remain in Canada. He has since changed his mind; confined to being held at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, he prefers to be deported back to Mexico.
But the Catch-22 is that as long as he is subject to the supervision of the Ontario Review Board he must remain in Canada. The alternative is to hold him accountable for murdering Nick Hickey, setting aside the agreement that he was not criminally responsible due to mental illness. A mental illness he appears to be satisfied that he can live with without resorting to the kind of remedial holding treatment that mental health experts know will keep his tendency to violence in check.
The family and the mother of 17-year-old Nick Hickey await justice. They would have found a remote comfort in a sincere expression of remorse on the part of this man with the ample ego, but no space for compassion or concern for the welfare of others.
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| Guillermo Escobedo-Hoyo, a paralegal, was found not criminally responsible in connection with the death of Nick Hickey.
LinkedIn |
Labels: Justice, Murder, Not Criminally Responsible
