NCR Does Not Mean Innocent

CFJC Commentators Doug Collins and James Peters

The rules regarding those found not criminally responsible for their crimes have to be changed. A man involved in a car crash in Vancouver last December has been released from detention, free to do whatever he wishes, after being found not criminally responsible for the crash. In that crash, the man carjacked a vehicle, then ran it into a building, causing injury to a girl inside the vehicle at the time. The Review Board says the man stopped taking his meds before the crash and was experiencing emotional distress. Somehow that’s supposed to excuse his behavior?

The rules are simply wrong. While a man may not be criminally responsible, surely that doesn’t mean he can get away with a serious offense. We have others in the same boat who committed murder and are also open to release when their next hearings come up. While we rely on these review boards to make judgments in these cases, one must question whether or not the rules are tough enough to ensure that people are detained for their behavior, no matter what causes it.

I understand it’s one thing when you understand your actions and commit a crime, and another when you don’t understand. But what’s to stop this man from going off his medication again and committing another act? The review says this man is still a threat, and is under several conditions as part of his release. Do you honestly think he would understand those conditions if he again went off medication? That’s absolutely stupid.

I don’t want to preclude people from being freed when they’re ready, but how can you say anyone can be ready under these circumstances? The laws are wrong, and it’s time someone took the lead in doing something to make them stronger. Maybe these people aren’t criminally responsible, but they’re certainly responsible. And certainly they should get more than just a slap on the wrist and let back out into society.

Accused Killer: was deemed not a ‘significant threat’ and released by the Review Board

Alexander Lawrence Laglace is charged with the second-degree murder of Tammy-Lynn Cordone in Vancouver’s Lighthouse Park in May of 2009… just months after being released.

The BRITISH COLUMBIA REVIEW BOARD held the review on December 8,2008 and the final order was signed on January 7, 2009, ruling that “we nonetheless conclude that Mr. Laglace currently does not pose a significant threat of grave harm such as warrants our ongoing jurisdiction over him.”

The BRITISH COLUMBIA REVIEW BOARD months earlier in March of 2008, had seemed to arrive at a different conclusion finding:

Note I have edited for brevity… please utilize full report for accuracy.

[ 24 ] When the accused last was before the Board on August 9, 2007, the Board
observed that the index offence of arson was serious and had the potential to lead to catastrophic results. The Board noted the accused’s record for and history of possessing weapons. The Board was concerned by the accused’s antisocial attitudes and was troubled by the incident of 2006 when he kicked another patient in the head as punishment. The accused’s attitude to continuing substance use was found to increase his risk.

[ 25 ] a period of just over four months, the accused’s behaviour has demonstrated that the panel’s concerns were justified.  Once in the community under conditional discharge he continued to abuse substances which by his own admission amounted to using cocaine every two to three days in addition to periodic marijuana and alcohol use. The accused found himself in serious trouble on no less than three occasions within a time span of approximately 2 months. He was alternately robbed or attacked at late hours near the Surrey sky train. There were multiple complaints of intimidating and threatening behaviour. The accused was eventually evicted from his accommodation for threatening behaviour. When returned to FPH the accused was found to have a six-inch box cutter in his possession.

[ 26 ] the accused’s combination of substance abuse and antisocial behaviours
such as loan sharking left him at high risk to intimidate others and wind up in dangerous confrontations.

[ 27 ] The risk of the accused becoming involved in some dispute or confrontation while in possession of a knife or other weapon and while under the influence of drugs is real and indeed foreseeable. In such circumstances the possibility of violence is equally foreseeable.

[ 29 ] We conclude that the evidence continues to establish that the accused is a
significant threat to public safety.

West Vancouver police have identified the woman murdered in Lighthouse Park as Tammi-Lynn Louise Cordone, 43, of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Her family may disagree with the BRITISH COLUMBIA REVIEW BOARD conclusion of “not a significant threat”.

Should a serial killer be kept where he is?

dahn batchelor’s opinions… is shared by a lot of fellow Canadians..

The grounds and area surrounding the Mental Health Centre in Penetanguishene, Ontario are steeped in history. The original 380 acre site was chosen by Governor John Graves Simcoe as a naval and military base to protect the Upper Great Lakes from American threats in the aftermath of the War of 1812. Perched at the entrance of Penetanguishene Harbour, the site retains its commanding view of Severn Sound in Southern Ontario.

In 1933, the first four wards of the maximum security facility which is the Oak Ridge Division were constructed. Originally intended to provide custodial care for the ‘criminally insane,’ Oak Ridge was the only institution of its kind in Canada at the time. Prior to 1933, mentally disordered offenders were shunted around the province to other psychiatric hospitals in Ontario. Since patients were rarely released back into society in the early days, another four wards were added to Oak Ridge in the mid-1950′s bringing the current patient capacity to 312 for patients whose ages are 17 and up. The really dangerous criminally insane offenders are sent to this facility.

The Ontario Review Board annually reviews the status of every person who has been found to be not criminally responsible or who is considered unfit to stand trial for criminal offences on account of a mental disorder. The Ontario Review Board is established under the Criminal Code of Canada. The Board is made up of judges, lawyers, psychiatrists, psychologists and public members appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council.

Ontario’s worst serial killer, Russell Johnson a.k.a. the ‘Bedroom Strangler’ has his sights on the pastoral setting of the Brockville mental-health facility that is perched on well-manicured lawns overlooking the St. Lawrence River. Psychiatrists described Johnson as a sexual sadist, a lust murderer and a necrophile. (has sex with dead bodies) Johnson (now 62) was the sexual sadist and necrophiliac who terrorized the London-St. Thomas-Guelph area back in the ’70s by stalking single women in apartment buildings, sometimes scaling 15 storeys, and then raping and strangling them in their beds. He sodomized one of them after he killed her. In 1978, he was charged with three murders. Later, he admitted to four additional murders and raping and choking 11 other women. The police believe that he has killed even more.

Now he wants to be sent to the Brockville Mental Health Centre, (a few hundred metres north of Lake Ontario) and comprises of several specialized units: Assessment Unit: a secure 9-bed unit providing acute care and assessment and treatment for court-ordered assessments; Forensic Rehabilitation Unit: a secure 24-bed unit providing medium-term care, assessment and treatment; Transition Unit 2: a secure 11-bed unit for patients requiring longer-term care, assessment and treatment, and a Transition Unit 1 that is a 15-bed unit providing medium-term care, assessment and treatment, as well as outreach and community reintegration services.

Russell Johnson is seeking a transfer from Oak Ridge via the Ontario Review Board. For Johnson, if the Board grants his request, it would be the equivalent of moving from a dungeon to the Ritz. He wants to spend the rest of his time in custody at the Ritz and I suppose, be eventually released back into society.

The people of Brockville are concerned that this man may end up walking about in their community and they have a right to be concerned. They haven’t forgotten David Kreuger, once a Penetang asylumist, and, more recently, Paul Delorme, another Penetang asylumist.

Peter Woodcock (born March 5, 1939) was a Canadian serial killer and child rapist who murdered three young children in Toronto, Canada in 1956 and 1957 when he was still a teenager. He was apprehended in 1957, declared legally insane and placed in Oak Ridge. In 1982, he legally changed his name to David Michael Krueger.

Woodcock murdered a fellow psychiatric patient in 1991 with a knife and hatchet at the medium-security hospital in Brockville, Ontario, during the first hour of his very first weekend pass. Woodcock was being supervised on the pass by Bruce Hamill, a former patient who killed an elderly Ottawa woman in 1984. Hamill was an accomplice in the Brockville murder, and both men were subsequently returned to Oak Ridge where Kruegar died on March 5, 2010 at the age of 71.

On a September day in 2001, Paul Norman Delorme, then 37 and a known child molester with a predilection for little girls, followed a 7-year-old girl into the women’s washroom of a Tim Hortons in this city, where he did exactly what his sexual deviancy made him prone to do.

What made the case particularly outrageous — and later the focus of a $3.6-million lawsuit by the girl’s family — was that Delorme was allowed to enter the restaurant unescorted, along with three other psychiatric patients, while Brockville Psychiatric staff waited outside in their vehicle.

In what seemed like a long shot at the time, Brockville Crown attorney Curt Flanagan — obviously fed up with the Delormes of this world being given such loose rein by psychiatrists who obviously didn’t know what they were doing, convinced superior court Justice Gerald Morin that Delorme, a long-term psychiatric case, was actually a dangerous offender, and not truly mentally ill. Therefore, instead of going back to Penetang, where his future movements would depend again upon the supposedly balanced discretion of the Ontario Review Board, Delorme was sent off to a maximum-security penitentiary setting, and a cell at the segregation wing of the Kingston Penitentiary within earshot of such notorious inmates as Paul Bernardo and cop-turned-killer Richard Wills and there, Delorme will likely die.

Johnson has long sought a transfer to a medium security psychiatric institution in Brockville. Unfortunately, his condition is as incurable as the scars borne by the victims’ families. Despite that, he is legally entitled to have his case reviewed annually by the Ontario Review Board. Although the membership of the Board has changed, it is the same Board that permitted child killer Peter Woodcock to be transferred to Brockville.

Three major topics arose during the eight-hour proceedings: the suitability of Brockville as a potential new home for Johnson; the murderer’s probability of re-offending; whether he feels any genuine remorse for his crimes.

Dr. John Bradford, a forensic psychiatrist who diagnosed Johnson as a sexual sadist upon examining him in 1985, spent the day testifying. Dr. Bradford holds a senior administrative and clinical position at Brockville. Johnson would not come under his care were a transfer request approved. Johnson’s present address is an all-male facility. Brockville has female patients, and residents are not locked in their rooms at night. Johnson would, in theory, be held in a secure, all-male wing. But he murdered women as they slept. Janice Blackburn, the attorney for Oak Ridge admitted that if Johnson was sent to Brockville, it would mean that for Johnson, “there is a sleeping-victim pool within the walls.”

Dr. Bradford was unable to provide an accurate measure of whether Johnson might re-offend, given an opportunity. The hearing heard how studies show recidivism rates for sexual offenders over the age of 60 to be 3.8%. The doctor pegged the rate for sexual sadists at two to three times higher. Johnson recidivism rate is beyond categorization because there are no statistics for him, because there is nobody else like him. The enormity of his crimes makes him unique. Dr. Bradford said, “Serial sadistic sexually motivated homicide is very rare. There are no benchmarks to go by vis-a-vis treatments.”

Most of the psychiatrists that have testified at these hearings have said for Johnson to be released, it would be ‘catastrophic. I suppose the people of Brockville are asking themselves, “Why do we need a catastrophe walking among us?”

Dr. Bradford believes the killer is remorseful. That he ‘feels badly’ about what he did. It is beyond me as to how anyone, even a psychiatrist can truly determine as to whether or not a serial killer really feels badly about what he has done. He has never expressed remorse to the families of his victims when they attended his previous hearings. So much for the validity of his remorse

To give you some idea as to what his real feelings are about the murders he committed, consider the following statement he made a few years ago at a previous hearing about the families of his victims.

“These people should stop living in the past. I have gotten on with my life. Why can’t they get on with theirs?”

That is how a serial killer with no sympathy for his victims or their families feels about his crimes.

The hearing has been adjourned until June 21st.

For almost 20 years, the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital had every reason to believe that psychopathic killer David Kreuger was its only nightmare on its elm-lined streets. If there was a demon, he was it. Then along came Paul Delorme, and the damage he recently brought and wrought. And now, potentially, the Bedroom Strangler may be moving in.

If the members of the Review Board approve his transfer to the Ritz, then in my opinion, they have no concern about the welfare of the citizens of Brockville or anyone else in society.

As I see it, Russell Johnson should remain in the maximum security Oak Ridge mental health facility for the criminally insane for the rest of his life. I haven’t made that statement out of a sense of revenge (although that would be understandable) but rather for the security of all the citizens in society. I don’t think anyone (other than soft-headed psychiatrists) want to see this serial killer roaming the streets ever again.

Schoenborn Not Criminally Responsible for Killing Children

Allan Dwayne Schoenborn committed a crime so horrendous the judge found he could not be held criminally responsible for his acts, because no reasonable or rationale person could do such a thing.

“I find that Mr. Schoenborn did commit the first-degree murder for each of his children … but is not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder,” Justice Robert Powers of B.C. Supreme Court ruled.

The children – Kaitlynne, 10, Max, 8 and Cordon, 5 – had been placed in their father’s care for a night by Mr. Schoenborn’s estranged common-law-wife, who had just told him reconciliation was impossible.

When Darcie Clark returned to her trailer home in Merritt, B.C., on April 6, 2008, she found her three children arranged as if sleeping. They had been smothered and the girl had been struck repeatedly with a cleaver. Scrawled in blood and soy sauce were the messages “Forever Young” and “Gone to Neverland.”

Crown lawyer Glenn Kelt, argued that Mr. Schoenborn was motivated by wanting to punish Ms. Clark. He waited until the children were asleep. He attacked his daughter with a cleaver, and when that didn’t kill her, he smothered her. He then smothered and strangled his little boys.

Mr. Schoenborn, a Vancouver roofer with a Grade 9 education and a history of mental illness, had followed the family to Merritt in hopes of reconciling with Ms. Clark. Just weeks earlier, he had pleaded guilty to violating a protection order that was put in place after he was accused of sexually assaulting her.

The trial heard that Mr. Schoenborn was consumed by jealousy and paranoia. When Ms. Clark told him she was expecting their first child, he began accusing her of being unfaithful.

He had been treated for psychotic illness, but refused to take his medication. In the months before the killings, he lost his job, was homeless and had been told a reunion with his family was impossible.

Mr. Schoenborn’s case has raised questions about government support for domestic-violence prevention and about how bail hearings are managed.

Days before the children were killed, Mr. Schoenborn was arrested over a disturbing incident at Kaitlynne’s elementary school. He was charged with two counts of uttering threats to cause bodily harm after he threatened a young girl who had upset his daughter.

Police asked that Mr. Schoenborn be held in custody over the weekend until April 7, when he could be brought before a judge in person.

Instead, in a bail hearing by telephone, justice of the peace Fraser Hodge agreed to free Mr. Schoenborn.

“I know we’re close to the line here on this one, but I am going to give Mr. Schoenborn a chance,” Mr. Hodge concluded. “I want you to remember that you got a good break on this, and, you know, appreciate that. Don’t let anything wrong,” he told Mr. Schoenborn. (more…)

Who is Dr. Jonathan Rootenberg??

“Psychiatric expert” from CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) in Toronto, Dr. Jonathan Rootenberg, who for all that we know is unable to tell the difference between compulsive behaviour and psychotic behaviour, determined that Vincent Li “Greyhound beheader” and a cannibal who killed and dismembered Timothy McLean of Winnipeg on a bus in Manitoba last July was psychotic when he killed his victim.

One does not have to be a psychiatrist, one just have to observe Dr. Rootenberg in person and listen to him speak for a while to quickly realise that “our psychiatric expert” is trying very hard to cope with some very serious mental handicaps.

First odd thing that one observes it the voice; Dr. Rootenberg’s False Ego voice that he uses to peddle his “psychiatric expertise” sounds like a voice of a man that it at least twice the size of Dr. Rootenberg. One could speculate that Dr. Rootenberg’s father was or still is twice the size of Dr. Jonathan Rootenberg and this False Ego voice is his father’s voice.

Once we manage to get over oddity of the voice and take a good look at Dr. Rootenberg’s performance we realise that Dr. Rootenberg’s mimics and gesticulation is very much overdone and it is produced consciously for public consumption. Not in spirit of good acting of a great actor imposing his persona on others in his presence, more in a way of a fake and an impostor who desperately keeps monitoring others to make sure that they keep on swallowing this mask that his False Ego keeps on generating.

Sadly, “Video” produced by Dr. Rootenberg’s False Ego keeps on lagging his “Audio” creating “Doppler Effect” commonly seen in badly dubbed Class B movies.

If that was not bad enough Dr. Rootenberg’s well rehearsed answers to prescript questions are delivered with this “Incredible Lightness of Being” tone of voice so characteristic for people suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Once we overcome all these visual and audio effects and try to concentrate on merit of things that we hear from him we have to sift thru this barrage of magic words; “major mental illness”, “delusional thinking”, “psychotic episode” and when we filter them out there is no independent thought left but a desperate plea to the listeners “But, these psychotropic drugs do help this patient to gain some insight into nature of his illness, do they not, but why?? They should.”

Since I saw Dr. Jonathan Rootenberg on March 17, 2009 delivering his performance to a very limited audience at CAMH during ORB (Ontario Review Board) Hearing I am willing to cut him some slack and I am willing to take this flight of imagination and presume that in the Courtroom he does significantly better. Does it in any way shape or form help Canadian justice system to somehow repair their tarnished image??

You be the judge:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/03/04/mb-li-trial.html
Bus beheading trial ends with both sides seeking same verdict
Judge promises decision Thursday morning
Last Updated: Wednesday, March 4, 2009 | 1:09 PM CT
CBC News
A two-day Winnipeg trial in a case of killing and beheading on a Greyhound bus ended Wednesday with both sides seeking the same verdict — not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder.

The judge said he will deliver his verdict at 10 a.m. CT on Thursday.

Psychiatrists for the Crown and the defence agreed during the short trial that Vince Li, 40, was suffering from schizophrenia and did not know what he was doing when he killed 22-year-old Timothy McLean of Winnipeg on a bus in Manitoba last July.

The psychiatrists said Li believed he was acting on orders from God when he attacked McLean, mutilating the young man before decapitating him and eating part of the body.

Li had pleaded not guilty to a charge of second-degree murder, but Crown and defence lawyers asked that he be found not criminally responsible.

That verdict would mean he could be sent to a provincial psychiatric facility rather than to prison. He would be placed under the authority of a provincial review board with power to keep him in custody or, if he is no longer considered a risk, discharge him.

‘He has a major mental illness that …rendered him unable to know what he was doing was wrong’—Dr. Jonathan Rootenberg
Toronto psychiatrist Jonathan Rootenberg, testifying for the defence, told court Wednesday that Li suffers from schizophrenia and was probably psychotic for weeks before the attack.

Rootenberg said Li meets the criteria for an accused person who would be not criminally responsible. “He has a major mental illness that …rendered him unable to know what he was doing was wrong,” the psychiatrist said, suggesting Li knew he was stabbing someone but thought it was a demon and didn’t understand the nature of his actions.

Earlier, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Stanley Yaren, testifying for the Crown, also gave evidence that Li was diagnosed as schizophrenic and suffered from a major psychotic episode — tormented by auditory hallucinations — at the time of the killing.

Yaren testified that according to Li, God told him that McLean was a “force of evil” who was about to stab Li unless he protected himself.

Killer could one day be rehabilitated, psychiatrists say
Even after the killing, Li believed McLean had supernatural powers and would come back to life unless he dismembered the body and spread the body parts around the bus, Yaren said. Li was not capable of understanding his actions were wrong, he testified.

Both psychiatrists said that Li, although he is very ill, could one day be rehabilitated and returned to society.

The CBC’s Marisa Dragani, reporting from Winnipeg, said the trial was unusual for its brevity and lack of conflicting versions of events.

“In a murder trial, you usually hear from witnesses; you usually hear testimony about what happened, when and how,” she said. “We didn’t hear that.

“There was an agreed statement of facts, filed right off the bat, that the Crown and the defence agreed to, and that was read out in court. It was quite lengthy, and that was done to spare any of the witnesses and the family as well from reliving this horror….