Man cleared of murdering his father
A North Vancouver man who beat his father to death and seriously injured his mother has been found not criminally responsible due to his schizophrenia.
Jordan Ramsay pleaded not guilty to the November 2011 second-degree murder of Donald Ramsay, 53, and the attempted murder of Wendy Ramsay, 53. He admitted to the attacks, but his lawyer argued that Ramsay, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 18, should be found not criminally responsible due to his mental disorder.
And in a ruling on Friday, B.C. Supreme Court Madam Justice Deborah Kloegman found that at the time of the offence, Ramsay suffered from a mental disorder that rendered him incapable of knowing that his actions were wrong.
She said the accused was not taking his sorely needed medications or at least not in the required dosages just prior to the slaying.
His parents decided to reduce the dosages and replace the medication with power vitamins, and he suffered acute anxiety from moving to North Vancouver from Nanaimo, said the judge.
At the time of the offence, Ramsay’s state of mind was “irrational, illogical, delusional, disorganized, disoriented, incoherent, trancelike and confused,” she said.
The severity of his condition proved that it was more likely than not that his mind was so disordered that he couldn’t tell right from wrong, she concluded.
Ramsay used a hammer or a wrench to strike his father multiple times in the head. The dad was pronounced dead at the scene.
His mother was also struck in the head and suffered serious injuries. She was later discharged from hospital and returned to Saskatchewan.
Ramsay must now undergo an assessment of a three-member panel of the B.C. Review Board, which will determine his future. He can be detained in a psychiatric hospital, conditionally discharged or discharged outright. It’s expected he will be detained at the Forensic Psychiatric Institute.
Outside court, Leeann Ramsay, the sister of Donald Ramsay, said the judge had reached the correct verdict.
But she said the death of her brother was preventable and could have been avoided had the accused not used the vitamins produced by a company called Truehope. She said the vitamins were improperly marketed as a cure for mental illness and called on Health Canada to take action.
“It makes me extremely sad and a little bit angry. I just want someone to be accountable for this.”
Bradford Stephan, the chief operating officer for Truehope, acknowledged that Ramsay was taking their vitamins but denied that they played a role in the slaying. “We’ve had over 80,000 people in North America on this program and we’ve never had a problem before.”
He blamed a visit the accused made to a North Vancouver psychiatrist a few days before the slaying, saying the psychiatrist had “ripped a strip off him” for use of the vitamins.
He said that Ramsay left the psychiatrist feeling “very paranoid.”