Families, friends continue to grieve deaths
He scans the room with a passive expression, a subtle smile coming across his face when he lands on someone familiar to him.
Yet, save for one elderly man who enters midway during his first in-person appearance in court, Matthew de Grood’s smiles are returned with cold stares, some of those stares unbroken throughout the 10 minutes or so that he sits in the prisoner’s box.
For the vast majority of these spectators on a tense Tuesday morning, it’s the only ammunition they have against de Grood, accused of first-degree murder in the deaths of five young people just three months ago.
Included in the packed courtroom are family members of victims Lawrence Hong, Zackariah Rathwell and Josh Hunter, along with close friends of Jordan Segura and Kaitlin Perras.
From grandmothers and uncles to university friends and pals since childhood, they sit together as one unified group, their devastation evident only moments earlier when many break down outside the courtroom’s doors, some weeping openly, others retreating to the washroom to wipe their eyes and try to pull themselves together.
“I didn’t know it was going to be this hard,” one elderly woman, a relative of one of the young men slain, tells me, apologizing for her tears. “I just miss him. Any chance you have some tissues in your purse?”
It’s hardly surprising, this spontaneous surge of emotion. This is, after all, the first time they have come face-to-face with the former friend accused of stabbing to death five promising young people on April 15, at what was a low-key gathering to celebrate the end of the post-secondary school year.
For the friends and family — at least two in the spectators’ gallery were at the party that turned from a feel-good evening into the scene of the worst mass murder in Calgary’s history — one can hardly imagine what it took for them to get dressed and head to court, let alone how they have been coping after witnessing such horrors.
Still, they sit silently, aside from the occasional audible sob, while the wheels of justice turn slowly but carefully before them. As the slight, shackled, 22-year-old prisoner looks on, it is agreed that de Grood be sent immediately to Alberta Hospital in Edmonton for a 30-day assessment to determine his mental fitness at the time of the slayings. Last month, de Grood was found mentally fit to stand trial for five counts of firstdegree murder, which means he can understand the process and instruct counsel, but still be mentally ill.
As the court is dismissed and the compliant prisoner in blue coveralls is whisked out of the courtroom, those spectators head out into the lobby and circle around court support staff who try their best to explain what just happened.
Downstairs, lawyers for both Crown and defence tell the gathered media what can be expected in the coming months. Defence lawyer Allan Fay is peppered with a variety of questions, including how the accused and his family are doing. “He’s nervous,” Fay says of the young prisoner, whose mother and veteran police officer father visit regularly and continue to support him “100 per cent.”
As Fay and Crown prosecutor Neil Wiberg speak, the upset spectators filter out through another exit. “We aren’t sure what all of this means, but we had to be here,” one extended relative — no one representing the victims wants to be identified — says sadly as he heads out. “We know the court has to be meticulous, so it’s going to be a long wait. We’re just nervous about the outcome.”
With the preliminary hearing set for March, it will indeed be a long time before the legal chapter of this tragedy comes to a conclusion.
Fay offers an explanation for de Grood’s unsettling courtroom demeanour. “That’s more an effect of the medications he’s on, he’s desperately eager to please,” he says of his client, whose silence is in contrast to his “no comment” remarks at his first appearance, via closed-circuit TV, in May. “I think a lot of people, not knowing that, would think he’s being inappropriate.”
As for those here to bear witness on behalf of the dead, it will also be a long time before they speak out. Says one as he escorts a weeping woman out into the morning sunlight: “We’ll have plenty to say, when this is all over.”