Kellie Johnson is not criminally responsible in the death of her five-year-old son, a Saskatoon judge has ruled.
Justice Neil Gabrielson delivered the verdict in the first-degree murder trial Tuesday afternoon at Saskatoon’s Court of Queen’s Bench.
Johnson, 38, was accused of killing her son Jonathan Vetter in January 2014.
The boy was found dead Jan. 4, 2014 in a home on the 400 block of Avenue R South.
Johnson killed him with a knife, both Crown and defence lawyers agreed. The case revolved around whether she was criminally responsible for her actions.
The defence argued she wasn’t criminally responsible due to mental illness.
The mother had pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder charge.
Johnson had been experiencing mental health issues for years and her mental state was deteriorating leading up to the killing, according to her defence lawyer Leslie Sullivan. She believed an imaginary figure, referred to as “the woman” throughout the trial, would kill her. She feared if “the woman” killed her, Vetter would be molested by her ex-boyfriend, become a molester himself and go to hell. She felt she was protecting him.
“I am satisfied that on the morning in question the accused was suffering from delusions such that she could not understand that her actions were morally wrong,” Gabrielson wrote in his decision.
“She was trying to save her son from eternal damnation and to do that she believed that she had to kill him.”
During the trial, Crown prosecutor Brian Hendrickson agreed Johnson was suffering from a psychotic episode linked to schizophrenia at the time of the killing, but said the mother was capable of making rational decisions.
He argued she knew the killing was wrong by societal standards because she hid the knife weeks before the incident, because she said “I’m sorry” after her son’s death, and because she fled the house after the killing.
Gabrielson stated in his decision he accepted the testimony of two doctors who said Johnson didn’t understand the killing was morally wrong.
He told Johnson he had a difficult time making the decision, to which she replied, “Thank you.”
Johnson will be taken back to Saskatchewan Hospital in North Battleford, where her case will be looked at by the Saskatchewan Review Board.
She will remain in the hospital indefinitely, unless officials determine she does not pose a threat to the public. If she is deemed fit to return to society, she will slowly be reintegrated into public life.
The process could take years.
--- CTV Saskatoon’s Angelina Irinici was in court for the verdict. Follow her coverage:
