Nanaimo man found not criminally responsible for woman's murder
A Vancouver Island man who pleaded guilty to stabbing a stranger to death outside his grandparents' home in Nanaimo, B.C., has been found not criminally responsible for the woman's murder due to a mental disorder.
Simon James Baker, then 21 years old, attacked 41-year-old Denise Allick in 2022, fatally stabbing her six times in the face, neck and shoulder.
On Wednesday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Douglas Thompson found "that in the moments when Mr. Baker stabbed Ms. Allick, he was incapable of rationally considering whether his conduct in the particular circumstances would have been morally condemned by reasonable members of society."
The court heard that Baker was watching television with his grandparents on June 20, 2022, and planned to visit a friend's house later that night. At approximately 10:10 p.m., he told his grandmother he was going outside for a cigarette, and she responded that she would take him to his friend's house when he was ready to go.
One or two minutes later, the grandmother heard a woman screaming outside the home. She opened the door to find Allick bleeding on the ground and Baker standing nearby, saying "this chick was attacking me," the judge wrote in his decision published online Friday.
Baker, uninjured, went inside and told his grandfather, who was partially deaf, that there was a woman covered in blood outside.
Allick was still breathing when the grandmother called 911, but died during the six-minute call, according to the judge. A stab wound to her neck had severed her left carotid artery, causing her death, the court heard.
'IS THAT WOMAN ALRIGHT?'
While his grandmother was on the phone with the 911 operator, Baker called a taxi and asked to be picked up at a nearby school. He was picked up at 10:25 p.m. and the taxi took him back to his grandparents' home, where he was arrested by Mounties around 10:36 p.m.
Police found a knife in the pocket of Baker's hooded sweater, and he told police that he was an opiate addict and had taken a small amount of drugs an hour earlier but was starting to experience withdrawal symptoms.
"Is that woman alright?" Baker asked police while being transported to the Nanaimo RCMP detachment. At the police station, when he was told a second time that he was under arrest for murder, he replied: "So she's not alright," the court heard.
While his grandmother was on the phone with the 911 operator, Simon Baker called a taxi and asked to be picked up at a nearby school. The taxi took him to his grandparents' home, where he was arrested by Mounties. (CTV News)
The judge said it remains unclear why Allick was at the house that night.
"There is no evidence that Mr. Baker knew Ms. Allick, and no evidence that reveals why she was on Mr. Baker's grandparents' property," he said.
The Victoria woman had been drinking with a friend at a Nanaimo home when they left to go to a liquor store a couple blocks from Baker's grandparents' house around 9 p.m.
After leaving the liquor store, Allick went next door to a gas station to buy cigarettes, where she bumped into the 11-year-old child of her friend's former partner, the court heard.
"Ms. Allick yelled at and grabbed the child," the judge said. "After this altercation, Ms. Allick's friend walked home and Ms. Allick left in her car. The car was ultimately located on 8th Street, parked in the same block as Mr. Baker's grandparents' home."
DEMONIC POSSESSION AND DRUG USE
Two forensic psychiatrists testified that Baker was experiencing schizophrenia, compounded by very serious substance-use disorders at the time of the murder. Baker had been undergoing treatment with an antipsychotic medication and was nearly due for his monthly injection, said the judge.
Baker had his first mental health assessment in December 2017, when he was 17 years old.
He told doctors he was experiencing delusions and hallucinations of people breaking into his home. He was hospitalized for weeks in which he "persistently held onto the ideas that he was attacked in the emergency room by being hit on the knee with a baseball bat, and that his mother was raped in the emergency room," according to the judge.
He was prescribed monthly injections of the anti-psychotic medication Abilify (aripiprazole) in 2018, however he continued to experience intermittent psychotic episodes over the coming years, including at least two in which he brandished knives.
During an interview with police two days after the murder, Baker's mother told investigators her son had been "paranoid, delusional and very concerned about trespassing on his property" for several months.
She also said her son believed he was possessed by a demon at his grandparents' house, and she described his drug use escalating from alcohol and marijuana as a teenager to cocaine and eventually fentanyl.
"It is clear from interactions with the police and hospital staff, and the accounts of his family, that in the months leading up to the event he was intermittently psychotic with prominent paranoia. For several years he harboured beliefs that he would be attacked in his home," the judge said.
"I think it is likely true that this terrible event unfolded within seconds. I find that Mr. Baker reacted on impulse rooted in paranoia when he stabbed Ms. Allick, with little or no opportunity for rational consideration."
The judge ordered that Baker be held in custody at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam, B.C., pending a disposition by the provincial review board.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Canada to see warm summer, wildfire risks loom for some regions: forecast
Get ready to feel the heat, Canada. Weather experts are predicting more sunshine and warmer temperatures for the summer.
'It was hell': Israeli mother held hostage with her children describes 51 days in captivity
Hagar Brodutch, her three children and four-year-old neighbour were kidnapped by Hamas-led militants from their home in Kfar Aza, Israel on Oct. 7 and held for 51 days. They were released in November, but Brodutch says her thoughts are never far from those still being held in Gaza.
New COVID-19 subvariants become the dominant strains in Canada
More than four years after COVID-19 effectively shut down the world, two new variants of COVID-19 have become the dominant strains of the novel coronavirus in Canada.
3 Israeli soldiers killed in Rafah booby trap explosion, media say, as offensive widens
The Gaza health ministry called on Wednesday for ensuring safe pathways for the immediate entry of fuel and medical aid to Rafah and northern Gaza, according to a statement carried by Hamas media quoting spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra.
P.E.I. kiteboarder 'lucky to be alive' after shark attack in Turks and Caicos
A professional kiteboarder from P.E.I. says he has been seriously injured in a shark attack that occurred while he was snorkelling in the Turks and Caicos Islands last week.
'Unruly passenger' forces WestJet flight to make emergency landing in B.C.
A WestJet flight heading to Calgary had to make an emergency landing in northern B.C. Monday due to an incident involving an 'unruly passenger,' Mounties say.
Introducing peanut butter during infancy can help protect against a peanut allergy later on, new study finds
New evidence suggests that feeding children smooth peanut butter during infancy and early childhood can help reduce their risk of developing a peanut allergy even years later.
The double-level airplane seat is back. This time, there's a first-class version
It’s the airplane seat design that launched a thousand memes and kickstarted a media storm. And now the double-level seat is back – only this time, with a twist.
House of Commons Speaker Greg Fergus survives vote calling for his ouster
Greg Fergus survived a vote to oust him as House of Commons Speaker on Tuesday, but with close to half of MPs expressing a loss of confidence in him, he faces a precarious path forward in maintaining order in Parliament.