No Cymbalta found in Bain’s blood, trial told

Accused has said he overdosed on anti-depressants on day of shooting

There were no traces of the antidepressant Cymbalta in the blood of the man charged with murder in Quebec’s election night shooting in 2012, an expert Crown witness testified Monday.

The drug is central to the testimony of Richard Henry Bain, who has claimed he overdosed on anti-depressants and couldn’t remember intricate details before and after the slaying nearly four years ago.

Catherine Lavallée, a forensic toxicologist testifying for the Crown, told jurors she tested two vials of blood taken from Bain at a Montreal hospital the morning after the death of stagehand Denis Blanchette outside Metropolis nightclub, which was hosting the Parti Québécois election victory rally.

The accused has said he’d taken several Cymbalta pills in the early evening of Sept. 4, 2012, and a forensic psychiatrist testified for the defence that an alleged overdose, along with an undiagnosed bipolar disorder, triggered a manic and psychotic episode.

But Lavallée says she found no Cymbalta, known as duloxetine, in Bain’s blood.

“Following the toxicology screen using the blood contained in the two tubes we used — for three separate screens — the results were negative for duloxetine,” she told the jury.

Prosecutor Dennis Galiatsatos posed a hypothetical question to Lavallée: if someone claimed to have consumed several tablets of Cymbalta about 12 hours earlier, would it be compatible with her findings?

“If someone were to ingest several tablets — eight or 10 — the concentration (in the blood) would have still been high,” Lavallée replied.

Other medications found in Bain’s blood work also didn’t support the overdose theory and do not cause blackout or memory loss symptoms described by the accused, she said.

Earlier on Monday, the Crown’s expert psychiatrist concluded his testimony and reasserted his opinion that anger, and not psychosis, fuelled Bain’s actions and that he was able to appreciate both the nature and quality of the acts for which he stands accused.

Jurors have spent the bulk of the last few weeks hearing from forensic psychiatrists who disagree on Bain’s mental state the night of the shooting.

The defence tried to raise doubts about the anger hypothesis put forth by Joel Watts, questioning him about the lack of visible intense rage in Bain, either on surveillance video before or in police interrogation footage after the alleged crime.

Watts conceded it was hard to gauge Bain’s level of rage, but it didn’t change his opinion that an underlying frustration and anger had existed in the accused for some time.

“Anger that can lead people to act in violent ways can also be anger that can be kept in themselves,” Watts told the jury.

Bain has pleaded not guilty to six charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder and arson-related counts, and is arguing he’s not criminally responsible by way of mental disorder.

Blanchette was killed and fellow stagehand Dave Courage seriously injured after they were both struck by the same bullet outside the Metropolis nightclub as then-PQ leader Pauline Marois was delivering her victory speech inside.