Man who confessed to shooting his wife 8 times guilty of second-degree murder

A Port Coquitlam man who showed up at a police station and confessed that he had shot his wife has been found guilty of second-degree murder.

Irinel Ghiorghita, 41, claimed at trial that he was in a state of “automatism” at the time he shot and killed his wife Andra, 38, and that his actions were not voluntary, but on Friday a judge rejected those arguments and found him guilty as charged.

“I find that the defence has not met the burden of establishing on a balance of probability that Mr. Ghiorghita had acted involuntarily when he shot Andra Ghiorghita,” B.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Pearlman said. “The presumption of voluntariness is not rebutted.”

The trial heard that the couple, who were married in Romania in 2001 and immigrated to Canada with their young son in 2007, were having marital difficulties at the time of the July 15, 2014 shooting.

Ghiorghita was under stress after learning that his wife was unfaithful to him and that she wanted to have sole custody of their son.

On the day of the shooting, the accused went to the local police detachment and told an officer that he’d done something bad and had shot his wife.

Three police officers were dispatched to the couple’s townhouse on Davies Avenue and forced open the front door. Inside, they found the victim’s body on the bed in the master bedroom. The accused had shot her eight times with his 9 mm semi-automatic firearm.

But Ghiorghita testified that he had only a fragmented memory of the events on the day of the shooting. He didn’t remember seeing the gun or where he found the gun case and did not remember loading the gun. While he remembered the sound of a shot and the sound of screaming, he didn’t remember who was screaming.

Ghiorghita’s lawyers, Lawrence Myers and Zachary Myers, arranged for a psychiatrist to examine the accused and prepare a report.

The psychiatrist testified that Ghiorghita was in a “dissociative state of automatism” induced by the cumulative events of the breakup of his marriage, his sense of betrayal at his wife and the prospect of losing his son. The defence lawyers argued that due to the involuntary nature of his actions, he should be acquitted.

But the Crown argued that although Ghiorghita was experiencing stress and anxiety, his actions were an expression of anger and shooting his wife eight times when she was lying on her bed was not an involuntary act.

In his ruling, the judge said there was evidence to show that right around the time of the shooting the accused was engaged in activities showing normal mental functioning, including composing and sending an email to his mother.

“I also take into account that in order to carry out the shooting, Mr. Ghiorghita had to go to the gun safe, unlock it, remove the case containing the pistol, load the magazine, insert the magazine into the handgun, walk upstairs and then discharge the rounds,” said the judge.

Pearlman said that while he accepted the evidence that a person in a dissociative state is capable of performing organized and directed activities, the accused had engaged in a series of relatively complex organized, directed activities.

“In my view those sequences of activities weigh against a finding that Mr. Ghiorghita acted involuntarily in a state of automatism when he repeatedly shot Andra Ghiorghita.”

The judge said he was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused meant to cause the death of his wife and was therefore guilty of second-degree murder.

The accused, who sat quietly in the prisoner’s dock during the proceedings in a Vancouver courtroom, had little reaction to the verdict.

The offence of second-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison with between 10 and 25 years of parole ineligibility. A sentencing hearing scheduled for Aug. 24 will deal with the issue of parole eligibility.