PATH tunnel stabber ruled not criminally responsible in killing
Review board will annually consider Rohinie Bisesar’s detention in psychiatric facility
After finding Rohinie Bisesar not criminally responsible for stabbing 28-yearold Rosemarie Junor in the heart in a Shoppers Drug Mart, Superior Court Justice John McMahon acknowledged all the victims of the devastating tragedy — including Bisesar.
“An innocent young woman is dead. Another young woman will be held in a secure psychiatric facility for a long time ... until experts are of the view that it is safe to release her into the community. No one wins,” McMahon said. McMahon agreed with both Crown and defence lawyers that at the time of the stabbing Bisesar, 43, was suffering from severe, untreated schizophrenia, including command hallucinations and beliefs that external forces implanted a device in her body and were controlling her movements.
When she killed Junor on Dec. 11, 2015, she was incapable of knowing the act was morally or legally wrong, he found.
“This is not a case of a person complaining of a mental disorder for the first time after a killing to excuse their actions and avoid criminal responsibility. There is an entire record of severe psychosis, delusional thoughts and auditory commands more than a year before the tragic killing,” McMahon said.
The Ontario Review Board, a five-per- son panel usually including psychiatrists, a lawyer and a member of the public, will now consider Bisesar’s detention and possible eventual release on an annual basis with a first hearing within 90 days, McMahon said.
The main concern of the board is public safety. There is no time frame for a possible release. Bisesar could be held at a secure forensic unit indefinitely, as long as she is deemed a “significant risk” to the public.
At the request of the Crown, McMahon ordered Bisesar to remain at the secure women’s forensic unit at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health until her review board hearing but refused to allow her the privilege of staff- escorted community passes without a risk assessment.
In emotional victim impact statements read or submitted in court, Junor’s friends and family described the pain of losing Rosemarie, also known as Kim.
“I stood next to my best friend Kim and watched her marry the love of her life,” Stacy Rampersad said.
“Only a few months later I had to stand there as they buried her in the cemetery.”
In a brief statement, Baldeo Persaud wrote that he is and always will be the husband of Kimberly Rosemarie Junor-Persaud.
“The pain I feel has been crushing and debilitating — my entire world, Kim, is no longer here with me,” he said.
She had been decorating their new home for Christmas in the days before she died.
“When she left our home on the morning of Dec. 11 to go to work I didn’t know it would be the last time I heard her say I love you.”
Outside court, Junor’s cousin Elizabeth said the justice system had failed Junor. “Murder is murder,” she said.
Junor’s mother Rosalind acknowledged Bisesar is sick. “But don’t let her out,” she said. Junor’s oldest brother Richard agreed and said the family would be urging the Ontario Review Board to keep Bisesar out of the community so that she does not pose a threat to another person.
In the brief trial last week, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Ian Swayze testified Bisesar was in a state of severe psychosis when she bought a knife from a dollar store and stabbed Junor in the heart.
Junor was a “victim of (Bisesar’s) illness,” Swayze testified. He said the horrible tragedy for everyone involved would not have happened if Bisesar had
“The pain I feel has been crushing and debilitating — my entire world, Kim, is no longer here with me.” BALDEO PERSAUD VICTIM’S HUSBAND
been in treatment.
Junor had popped into the drugstore in the underground PATH system on an afternoon break, court heard.
She was on the phone with a friend when, according to an agreed statement of facts read in court, Bisesar walked up to her and stabbed her. Bisesar put the knife on a cosmetics display and left immediately. The women were complete strangers to each other, court heard.
According to Swayze’s report, made in a court exhibit, Bisesar told Swayze that on the day of the incident, she heard the voice in her head say: “what is the worst thing you can do.”
She said the voice commanded her to buy a knife and go into the Shoppers Drug Mart.
She said she approached Junor without hesitation.
“The voice said, ‘If you mean to do it, do it,’ ” she told Swayze. “The voice and movements raised my hand, pushed forward … it was like the knife was sticking to my hand and couldn’t be dropped.”
Junor was rushed to the hospital, but died four days later.
The case has taken nearly three years to conclude because Bisesar was repeatedly assessed and eventually found unfit to stand trial in December 2017 because her continued delusions impaired her ability to instruct her lawyer.
She consistently refused treatment for a mental illness until she was forced through a treatment order issued by the court. Her symptoms are now almost entirely in remission and she is consenting to treatment, Swayze testified at her fitness hearing last week after which a jury found her fit to stand trial.
Experts familiar with not criminally responsible (NCR) cases say there is often a record of contact with the mental health system prior to the incident, including attempts to seek help by the individual or their families.
In Bisesar’s case, she was forcibly hospitalized for a month in 2014 when her family called 911 after she threatened to burn down their home.
She discharged herself against the advice of her doctors when she was finally deemed a volun- tary patient and continued to be untreated.
“Despite the best efforts of family, a person’s mental illness can spiral out of control and that is what happened in this case,” Bisesar’s lawyer Robert Karrass said.
“The system is kind of backwards,” said Jamie Livingston, a criminology professor at St. Mary’s University in Halifax.
If people were able to access the supports — like housing or treatment — when they needed it “that could have saved the person from the (offence).”
Instead, it’s often only after an NCR finding they get access to the help or support they need, he said.
NCR verdicts remain rare, said mental health lawyer Anita Szigeti. In 2017, there were a total of 126 people found not criminally responsible in Ontario, according to the Ministry of the Attorney General. In the same year, more than 200,000 cases were completed.
An NCR finding is definitely not a “get-out of jail free card,” Szigeti said.
While detention due to an NCR finding is not intended to be punishment, like with a prison sentence, “the ramification of coming under the review board’s jurisdiction is potentially indefinite detention in a maximum secure psychiatric facility setting, some of these facilities are very similar in their layout and security to high-security prisons.”
Individuals found not criminally responsible tend to be significantly less likely to reoffend than individuals found guilty of similar offences, according a study of 1,800 NCR cases in Canada.
If and when a person is granted a conditional or absolute discharge varies dramatically, says Livingston.
The man found not criminally responsible for beheading a passenger on a Greyhound bus received an absolute discharge eight years after the NCR ruling.
“The voice said, ‘If you mean to do it, do it.’ ” ROHINIE BISESAR DESCRIBING THE VOICE SHE HEARD IN HER HEAD WHEN SHE STABBED JUNOR.