Osoyoos man sentenced in attempted murder-suicide

Woman blames mental-health system after her husband ‘fell through the cracks’

An Osoyoos woman whose husband tried to gas them both in a murder-suicide attempt blamed the incident on the psychiatrists who refused to keep him hospitalized.

“We are here because he fell through the cracks of the mentalhealth system,” Lena Thompson told a judge Tuesday in Penticton at the sentencing hearing for her husband, Donald.

“Don is a good man who made a horrible mistake in judgment that has caused a terrible cost on all our lives. I forgive him. He was broken.”

Thompson was sentenced to one year in jail, followed by two years’ probation, after pleading guilty to one count of administering a noxious substance.

Crown counsel Ann Lerchs said police were called to the Thompson home around 5 a.m. on Aug. 2, 2016, after Lena called 911 to report the condominium had been filled with natural gas from the kitchen stove.

Her husband, who had also attempted to overdose on sleeping pills, was later admitted to the psychiatric ward at Penticton Regional Hospital.

While there, he disclosed to a psychiatrist that he and his wife hadn’t been getting along because he had lost his job, they were about to be evicted from their apartment and he was addicted to pornography.

Thompson later admitted to Lena that he wanted to kill himself and “take her with him, as she was currently struggling with life and he felt he could not add to her burden by his death,” Lerchs said.

Court also heard he had attempted suicide three times in the months leading up to the incident and been hospitalized short term in both Penticton and Kelowna as a result.

Lerchs, who noted there was “little to no case law” on which to base her sentencing submission, recommended a four-year prison term.

“This is a situation of domestic violence perpetrated on his spouse with serious — potentially fatal — consequences,” she said.

“This also showed, because this occurred within a condominium building, a disregard for the safety of others . . . and but for the actions of Ms. Thompson in waking up and turning off the gas and calling the police, the consequences could have been much worse.”

Defence counsel James Pennington noted his client took steps to minimize those consequences by shutting off the power inside the home to cut the chances of an explosion “as a way of ensuring that others in the same complex would not be exposed or placed in danger.”

The case, the lawyer continued, is a product of a mental-health system “that’s starved for money and resources, and pressured by hospital administration.”

Still, Pennington argued his client’s mental-health issues could be better addressed in the community and therefore suggested a sentence of time served. Judge Gale Sinclair agreed. “To have Mr. Thompson, in my view, languish in a prison cell for a number of years yet to come would not serve the purposes and principles of sentencing, would not serve Mr. Thompson, and, as well, would not serve the community at large and protect the community at large,” Sinclair concluded.

With credit for time served, Thompson has 85 days remaining on his jail sentence. Once on probation, he’ll be banned from having any contact with his wife, except to attend counselling or if approved in advance by his probation officer.

He’ll also be required to take steps to maintain his mental health.