Ex-soldier almost delusional: psychiatrist

PORT HAWKESBURY, N.S. • An inquiry investigating why a former soldier killed his family and himself in 2017 heard Friday from a psychiatrist who said there was an aspect of Lionel Desmond's life he could not figure out.

Anthony Njoku was working at the Operational Stress Injury Clinic in Fredericton in August 2015 when he met the former corporal, who had been released from the military because of his ongoing struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Njoku testified Desmond was irritable, distracted, distressed and preoccupied by intrusive thoughts that forced him to relive traumatic experiences he had endured in Afghanistan in 2007.

“I thought he needed a lot of help,” Njoku said, adding Desmond's PTSD was complex and severe.

The psychiatrist, however, said the former rifleman was actually more worried about his wife, Shanna, whom he suspected of wasting money and plotting against him — thoughts the doctor described as bordering on delusions. He said he couldn't determine whether Desmond's anger toward his wife was the result of PTSD or the byproduct of a relationship breaking down. “I was never able to distinctly make that call,” he said. “It was something I was struggling with.”

Desmond's descriptions of his wife were at odds with what the psychiatrist saw during a meeting in January 2016, when Desmond showed up with her and his nineyear-old daughter, Aaliyah. “It was reassuring,” Njoku said of Desmond's wife. “She genuinely cared for him.”

“His daughter was there. The interactions seemed entirely appropriate between him and the daughter. It was entirely loving.”

At that point, Njoku paused and started sobbing.

The inquiry heard Desmond and Njoku were supposed to meet every three weeks, but that fell apart.

Desmond spent two-and-ahalf months at in-patient program for veterans in Montreal. But that was less than half the recommended sixmonth stay. And in August 2016, he returned to his home in Upper Big Tracadie, N.S.

The inquiry has heard that for the next four months, Desmond received no therapeutic treatment. As Veterans Affairs was making arrangements for him to receive treatment in Nova Scotia, he sought help from the hospital in Antigonish, N.S.

On Jan. 3, 2017, Desmond used a rifle to kill his 31-yearold wife, their 10-year-old daughter and his 52-year-old mother, Brenda, inside the family's rural home.