Metal illness led Turcotte to attack children, defence expert testifies
SAINT-JÉRÔME A psychiatrist for the defence says it was Guy Turcotte’s mental illness and not his consumption of windshield washer fluid that led him to attack his children and stab them to death in 2009.
“It’s obvious to me that it is the mental disorder that led him to do that,” Dominique Bourget testified Monday, as she was crossexamined for a fourth day by the Crown.
Turcotte has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in the February 2009 slayings of Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3. He has admitted to causing their deaths but his lawyers are arguing he should be found not criminally responsible by way of mental disorder.
The prosecution has maintained Turcotte was fully aware of his actions the night the children were killed.
Crown prosecutor Rene Verret suggested that during Turcotte’s first trial, intoxication by methanol — a key ingredient in washer fluid — was an important factor in her findings, which Bourget didn’t recall.
In a February 2011 report, Bourget stated Turcotte’s actions were the result of a combination of three factors: depression, suicidal tendencies and the intoxication.
But in her second report, authored just before the current trial, the question of methanol poisoning was barely mentioned — which Bourget defended by saying it was simply an update that didn’t necessarily repeat the first report.
She admitted the only evidence that washer fluid had been consumed came from Turcotte, who, the Crown noted, lied to hospital staff after his arrest, saying he’d consumed Tylenol capsules.
“So how can you be sure about what he’s saying about methanol?” Verret asked.
“I don’t think he was lying,” Bourget replied.
Bourget repeated her conclusions were complex and based on evidence she gathered, not just Turcotte’s attitude leading up to the deaths, adding it was “unlikely” he’d killed his children as revenge against his former wife, the mother of the two, who’d taken up with another man.
The Crown contends Turcotte’s attack was premeditated and Bourget’s diagnosis of psychiatric illness is an opinion, not a certainty, given her assessment occurred almost a full year after the double slaying.
Bourget, a forensic psychiatrist, maintained Turcotte’s brain was profoundly sick and he was unable to stop himself from killing his children.
She has testified Turcotte, 43, was suffering from an adjustment disorder, exhibiting signs of anxiety and depression with obsessivecompulsive traits and was in suicidal crisis when he stabbed the children 46 times.