Explicit texts reveal tired, stressed mom, murder trial hears
Psychiatrist’s ability to judge woman’s mental state at time of child’s killing is limited: Crown prosecutor
On the night she killed her 18-month-old daughter, Kaela Mehl was sending and receiving sexually explicit text messages, a B.C. Supreme Court jury heard Thursday.
But Mehl’s treating psychiatrist, Dr. David Yaxley, testified the messages, which have not been read by the jury, are those of a distraught human being.
“You feel these put Ms. Mehl in a bad light?” Crown prosecutor Kimberly Henders Miller asked Yaxley during a long and testy cross-examination.
The messages show much more than sexual content, Yaxley replied. They reveal a person who is tired and stressed.
The psychiatrist, who has been treating Mehl since February 2016, has been declared an expert witness on Mehl’s state of mind on Sept. 15 and 16, 2015, when she killed Charlotte and tried to kill herself.
Mehl is charged with first-degree murder in her daughter’s death.
She has admitted to killing Charlotte by feeding her a mixture of yogurt laced with sleeping pills, then smothering her.
The Crown must prove that Mehl intended to kill the child and that the act was planned and deliberate.
Yaxley said he was curious about the sexual texts, but believes Mehl was hungry for love and searching for attention. She is now embarrassed by them and knows they were not helpful, he said.
Yaxley testified that he never felt Mehl misled him or had been deceitful or dishonest, but told Henders Miller he wondered if he was getting the whole story. He wondered what state Mehl was in when she killed her child.
“Was she killing in anger?” he wondered.
Mehl’s mental state continues to be dominated by the killing and her unsuccessful suicide, he said.
Yaxley believes Mehl is suffering from a major depressive disorder and posttraumatic stress. Yaxley testified that he still doesn’t think they have fully talked about Charlotte’s death.
Henders Miller charged that the doctor’s ability to determine Mehl’s mental state at the time of the killing is limited because Mehl was unable to give an objective account of events.
Time alone would affect the account Mehl gave Yaxley five months later, she said. Her memory would also be affected by her extended hospital stay, the death of her daughter, her suicide attempt, living with her mother and the acrimonious breakup of her marriage, she charged.
Yaxley disagreed. After reviewing the evidence, he did not find any inconsistencies with Mehl’s account of what happened.
“She may have been completely wrong. But she was consistently wrong,” he said.
Henders Miller suggested that before Yaxley received legal permission in April 2017 to discuss the killing, he had already concluded Mehl was mentally ill at the time.
Yaxley agreed, saying that is what he and the other medical practitioners believed.
His note from their session on Nov. 8, 2016, reads: “I shared with her that she certainly was mentally ill and her brain was not working properly.”
“For her to make sense of what she did, you had to endorse she was mentally ill,” Henders Miller said. “By the time you reviewed the criminal file material, you had been hearing her version for more than 14 months and had already decided she was mentally ill. I’m going to suggest to you, you were susceptible to the natural tendency to fit new facts into a narrative you’d already accepted.” Yaxley disagreed. Henders Miller suggested that Mehl was multi-tasking well on the evening before Charlotte’s death. She was texting her sister-in-law about new books she was going to read to Charlotte. She was “sexting” a friend and having a fight with her mother. At midnight, Mehl began researching Zopiclone.
She started writing a suicide note to her ex-husband, Dan Cunningham, his mother and father and the family lawyer.
“She’s self-aware and goal oriented,” Henders Miller said. “She’s writing this letter for a purpose and has specific and different messages for people.”
Yaxley testified that some of Mehl’s brain capacities were still working, but the capacity to decide whether homicide or suicide were a good idea was not.
“It was a sudden decision. … It’s a wrong decision,” Yaxley told the court.
Mehl made two bowls of yogurt and fed it to the baby and to herself. She thought they’d eat it and go to sleep together. Charlotte died, then Mehl finished the letter and sent it to all three Cunninghams.
“She’s aware of what she’s doing and explains why she is doing it. Her actions were performed for the very purpose of ending two lives,” Henders Miller said.
“That’s correct,” the doctor testified.