The man charged with murdering an Abbotsford teenager and stabbing a second youth during an apparently random attack at their high school will be assessed to determine if he's fit to stand trial.
Gabriel Klein has been admitted to a Lower Mainland psychiatric hospital four times since the attack in November 2016, and has been held there continuously for the past eight months, said his lawyer, Martin Peters.
"Mr. Klein is more psychotic than last week. There seems to be a downward curve in his disorder," Peters told New Westminster Supreme Court Tuesday morning.
Klein was dressed in purple coveralls and appeared subdued at the hearing, though he looked around at everyone in the courtroom gallery.
He is accused of walking into Abbotsford Senior Secondary School with a knife and attacking two Grade 9 students near the entrance to the building. Thirteen-year-old Letisha Reimer was killed, but her 14-year-old friend survived.
Police said the girls' attacker was shoeless when he walked onto school grounds. Staff members confronted a suspect and restrained him until officers arrived.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Crown lawyers told Justice Heather Holmes that a psychiatric report submitted as evidence posed "more questions than answers," and asked the judge to subpoena Klein's psychiatrist.
Justice Holmes agreed, saying "It does seem to me there are reasonable grounds to hold a hearing on fitness to stand trial."
The fitness hearing will happen on Wednesday afternoon.
The trial, which is set for early May, would likely be delayed if Klein is found unfit, said Peters.
In that case Klein would return to Colony Farm Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, and be held until he becomes fit to stand trial. That status is reviewed every two years, Peters said.
