Knife attack nets five years

VERMEULEN RECORDED ATTEMPT TO KILL PARENTS IN FEBRUARY ATTACK

It was just after 2 a.m. Feb. 11 and 28-year-old Nigel Kyle Vermeulen couldn’t sleep. But instead of taking a sleeping pill or reading a book until he got tired, he decided to kill his mother and father.

“Can’t sleep, hungry, so might as well kill my parents,” he wrote in his journal only minutes before he crept into their room and stabbed them both while they slept. “Going to knife them and hope it works. Don’t know what after, there is no after, all that matters is killing them.”

His parents survived the attack, however, and Tuesday in Lethbridge provincial court Vermeulen pleaded guilty to one count of attempted murder against his father, and once count assault with a weapon on his mother.

He was sentenced to five years in a federal penitentiary, a sentence recommended by both the Crown and defence.

“It’s by luck, not design, that his father was not killed, and his mother, for that matter,” Crown prosecutor Erin Olsen told Judge Eric Peterson during Vermeulen’s sentencing hearing.

Reading from an agreed statement of fact, Olsen said Vermeulen’s mother was wakened by her husband’s scream, and she saw her son standing at the foot of her bed before he ran away. Vermeulen had stabbed his father in the neck with a knife, then tried to stab his mother, but the knife blade had broken off. He stabbed her again with another knife, but only hit her in the leg.

Evidence of the attack was all too clear; not only had Vermeulen written on his computer what he was planning, he recorded the crime with his camera.

“Mr. Vermeulen first recorded himself on camera selecting a multi-tool and checking the knife blade for strength,” Olsen told court. Vermeulen then silently moved toward his parents’ bedroom, sat the camera down, opened the door and entered.

“Watching and listening to this recording, one can hear a few muffled noises, and then a harrowing scream from Mrs. Vermeulen.”

Police found Vermeulen outside, a short distance from his parents’ home, in which he had lived all his life.

In his statement to police, Vermeulen said killing his parents was the only way to “get out,” and he decided to record their murders “as it would be a benchmark in his life.”

He told police he wants psychiatric help and thought he might be autistic.

Vermeulen was assessed at the Southern Alberta Forensic Psychiatry Centre in Calgary, where he was found fit to stand trial. And although he didn’t meet the criteria to be designated not criminally responsible by way of a mental disorder, he was still diagnosed with several disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, selective mutism, delusional disorder, and an unspecified personality disorder, characterized by schizotypal, narcissistic, avoidant and dependent personality traits.

Olsen said Vermeulen even thought at a young age of poisoning or stabbing his parents to escape from them and their abusive treatment. That abuse was never substantiated, however, and doctors believe it’s part of Vermeulen’s delusions.

Although Judge Peterson agreed with the joint submission for a fiveyear sentence, he credited Vermeulen for seven and a half months he spent in custody since his arrest, leaving him with just over four years to serve. Vermeulen is also prohibited from possessing firearms and other weapons for life, and he must submit a sample of his DNA for the National DNA Databank.