Former soldier shot by RCMP asked for help in letter to prison psychiatrist

PRINCE GEORGE — More than a year before he was fatally shot in a standoff with RCMP on his rural farm, Greg Matters sent a handwritten note to a court-appointed psychiatrist asking for help.

Dr. David Morgan testified at a coroner’s inquest Thursday into Matters’ death that he met the former soldier and peacekeeper in the Prince George Correctional Centre to conduct a clinical risk assessment in December 2010.

Matters was nearing the end of a 56-day incarceration after he was refused bail following a conviction for sending a threatening email to the head of the RCMP Public Complaints Commission.

“Thank you for not thinking that I am a serial killer,” the 40-year-old former soldier wrote in the lengthy letter.

“I am sorry for the alarming, disturbing words I sent, and ill worry those words may have caused,” Matters wrote.