Suspect blames medication for shooting
Richard Bain testified Monday that he has no memory of opening fire outside a Parti Québécois election celebration in 2012, blaming his actions on a heavy dose of an anti-depressant he took that night.
As the defence opened at a trial on charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder, Bain’s lawyer, Alan Guttman, told the jury he would ask them to find his client not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder.
Bain, 65, was the first defence witness, and he arrived on the stand carrying his personal Bible. Asked if he swore to tell the truth, he read from Matthew 5:37: “Jesus said, let your statement be ‘Yes, yes.’ ”
He described a life characterized by hard work and occasional bouts of depression that took a turn for the worse when he was prescribed the anti-depressant Cymbalta in 2009.
He said he broke off a 20-year relationship with his girlfriend and began visiting strip clubs every night, hiring prostitutes and quickly burning through an inheritance and savings of $900,000.
“With Cymbalta, you don’t think correctly,” he testified. “I had all the energy in the world. Things come to my mind and I do it. You don’t think things out. It makes you not responsible.”
Around that time he began stockpiling food, medication, weapons and ammunition after he became convinced the H1N1 virus would lead to a global pandemic and a breakdown of civil society. He testified that he bought an army transport truck, military fatigues, 12 CZ 858 semiautomatic rifles and 20,000 bullets for protection.
“My logic was that if you’re driving a military truck in military clothes and have firearms that look like military, no one’s going to bother you,” he testified.
On the advice of family worried about his behaviour, Bain switched to another anti-depressant, but he resumed taking Cymbalta in the spring of 2012.
Sept. 4, 2012, was provincial election day. Bain testified he drove to Montreal that afternoon to visit his sister-in-law in hospital and he became upset because she was suffering while she waited for an operation. As he was leaving at about 6:30 p.m., he asked his brother where the Metropolis concert hall was — he heard that the PQ election-night party would be there. He said he decided to take a look out of curiosity, and he drove by it in his GMC Yukon three times before leaving.
That, he told the jury, is where his memory of the day ends. He said his sisterin-law’s suffering affected him deeply. “My depression that day came over me like a wave,” he testified. He said that in addition to his regular dose of one 60 mg Cymbalta capsule taken in the morning, he downed at least eight more after leaving the hospital.
Shown video footage of his vehicle arriving behind the Metropolis shortly before midnight, of a figure leaving the vehicle and approaching the concert hall’s rear entrance and of his subsequent arrest as police pinned him to the ground, he said he had no memory of the events.
He said the footage of him wearing a blue bathrobe and ski mask, yelling “The English are waking up,” as police led him away, was unrecognizable. “It’s totally different from my character. All my life I worked and helped other people,” he said. Asked what could explain the change, he said: “To me it was the medications.”
He also disputed the Crown’s portrayal of him as an angry anglophone, furious that he had been prevented from voting that day and that Pauline Marois had been elected PQ premier.
“That’s hogwash,” he said. “They won the election fair and square. We live in a democratic society.” He also said most of his friends are francophone and that he spoke French more than English around his home in the Laurentians.
The trial has heard that Bain arrived at the PQ celebration in his black GMC Yukon loaded with three CZ 858 Tactical semi-automatic rifles, two handguns and more than 200 rounds of ammunition. Witnesses described how he shot into a group of stagehands at the back entrance without warning, killing Denis Blanchette and seriously injuring Dave Courage. The rifle jammed, and police managed to tackle Bain as he fled the scene.
Bain is to continue testifying Tuesday. Guttman said the defence will include testimony from psychiatric expert Marie-Frédérique Allard and Bain’s family members and former work colleagues.