Psychiatric reports spell out Pasieka’s history of mental illness

Convicted murderer Jayme Pasieka believed he needed to carry weapons to protect himself, even as a child.

Details about Pasieka’s background leading up to Feb. 28, 2014 — the day he went to the west Edmonton Loblaw warehouse where he worked and stabbed six men, killing two — were laid out in three psychiatric reports entered as evidence during the trial that ended Friday.

A jury found Pasieka, who suffers from schizophrenia, guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Fitzroy Harris, 50, and Thierno Bah, 41. He was also convicted of four counts of attempted murder.

The reports, prepared by Alberta Hospital forensic psychiatrist Roger Brown, were entered as exhibits during the trial, and obtained Wednesday by Postmedia.

Pasieka was born in Edmonton on March 4, 1984. His early childhood included hospital stays related to a variety of respiratory illnesses. Beginning in elementary school, teachers began to report Pasieka drew pictures of weapons and of himself as a warrior, and brought toy guns to school.

“The idea that he believed he required weapons to protect himself is one that his parents reported persisting throughout his schoolage years and into his adulthood,” Brown wrote in the report.

By Grade 9, Pasieka was skipping class regularly and was described as “verbally aggressive” when his parents confronted him about it.

As an adult, Pasieka sometimes behaved in ways that his family found “paranoid” and “delusional,” Brown stated.

He was “obsessed” with the military, his family said, and was socially isolated. In 2009, while being arrested for harassing his neighbours, he told police he was applying for the military reserves and was acting on the Queen’s orders. After being convicted of uttering threats and assault with a weapon in 2010, a recommendation was made Pasieka get a psychiatric assessment, but Brown found no evidence that one was completed.

In February 2014, Pasieka was experiencing intense hallucinations, and feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, Brown wrote. However, he also found Pasieka deliberated and settled upon a plan to harm others. Pasieka understood the “legal wrongfulness” of his actions and, in Brown’s opinion, didn’t meet the criteria to be exempted from criminal responsibility. Brown also found that Pasieka was fit to stand trial.

During the trial, Pasieka remained certified under the Mental Health Act.

Throughout the eight-day trial, Pasieka sat quietly in the prisoner’s box. When he testified, he spoke clearly and softly.

At one point, his defence lawyer, Peter Royal, asked him if the plan to attack other people in order to get help still made sense to him. “A little,” Pasieka said. Sentencing is scheduled for March 31.