Crown concedes case to the defence: Noyes murder trial
By Mona Mattei
Crown counsel has conceded to the defence that the verdict should be one of not criminally responsible for reason of mental disorder in the case of Kimberly Ruth Noyes, accused of second-degree murder. In the last day of the trial, Phillip Seagram, crown counsel and Deanne Gaffar, representative for Noyes, provided their final submissions. Gaffar cited extensive case law around the four tests that Mr. Justice Mark McEwan will need to apply to determine whether Noyes’ mental state gave her the ability to apprehend the nature and the consequences of her actions. “This is a case that provides the strongest evidentiary case” that Noyes was incapable of knowing her actions were wrong, said Gaffar. Gaffar said the psychiatrists’ testimony provided clear statements that Noyes’ condition had started in July, and that “the references and delusional beliefs she had existed for a number of years. She still suffers, still has some of these beliefs.” Noyes has been on trial for the past three weeks in Rossland, B.C. for the stabbing of her 12 year old neighbour, John Fulton, in Grand Forks in August of 2009. In submissions from both the defence and crown today, lawyers said that the evidence provided throughout the trial from the nearly 20 non-expert and expert witnesses demonstrated that Noyes, while she may have known that she was killing Fulton at the time, was unable to know the moral difference between right and wrong. “I have no quarrel with respect to the law submitted (by Gaffar) – it is accurate and complete,” said Seagram. “(The court) has heard the same evidence from different witnesses and different perspectives.” Seagram said that they have “amply and definitively” provided evidence of delusional beliefs and profound depression. Court heard earlier this week from the forensic psychiatrist for the defence, Dr. Roy O’Shaughnessy, who provided testimony based on an interview he had with Noyes in September 2009 at which time he said she was still acutely ill. O’Shaughnessy said that in his interview with Noyes she told him about her focus on the anti-Christ and that she spent a lot of time reading the Book of Revelations. It was there that she concluded that she was “an evil woman with seven horns” and that she feared that she would have to be cast into the desert with her children as punishment, court heard. At some point, he said, her focus shifted to believing that killing her neighbour, Fulton, would make up for her sins and allow the second coming. Noyes told him that some time in July 2009 she started to think that she needed to kill Fulton but that she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her mental health workers about her thoughts. The morning of the murder, Noyes felt that she had been clearly told “to do it now,” O’Shaughnessy explained. He said that there was no doubt that Noyes’ symptoms were severe depression and that she was psychotic at the time of the murder. “On the day of Aug. 15 there is no question in my mind that her capacity to know right and wrong was impaired…she could not rationally understand what she was doing.,” said O’Shaughnessy. “Her capacity to determine impulse and thought from reality was most impaired.” He said she had a belief that thoughts had been inserted in her mind that she had to do the sacrifice. Other witnesses who testified on Tuesday for the defence were Loretta Noyes and Barbara Noyes-Ferrier, both older sisters of Kimberly. The sisters were often tearful as they outlined their attempts to support Kimberly as her mental illness progressed over the years from the birth of her third child in 2002 until 2009. Noyes-Ferrier described two incidents with Kimberly in 2006 and 2007 that ended in violent attacks by Kimberly on her sister. Noyes-Ferrier said that the violence was very sudden – that Kimberly would “flip from calm to violence” very quickly. Despite the difficulties the family has experienced in supporting Noyes, both sisters tried to make eye contact with her during their testimony, and Noyes-Ferrier reached out to Noyes as she left the stand to squeeze her hand. “This is a devastating and tragic case” said Gaffar, especially since Noyes is “a gentle, kind and caring person” when not ill. McEwan commented that he agreed there was not much to reconcile regarding the evidence presented and set the date for his verdict as Friday, July 23.
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