A man relying on a defence that he’s not criminally responsible for the death of his mother due to mental disorder “was trying to come up with every possible excuse” to reduce his culpability, Crown suggested Thursday during Ryan Elder’s second-degree murder trial.
Elder, 30, has pleaded not guilty in the death of his mother, Raymonde Elder, despite having given a detailed statement to police following his arrest of how he stabbed, strangled and punched her to death.
Raymonde Elder’s body was found in her Langford home by police conducting a wellness check on New Year’s Eve in 2021. Ryan Elder was found in the home when police arrived.
A psychiatrist who interviewed Elder more than two years after his mother’s death has said he believes Elder was capable of understanding the nature of his actions at the time of his mother’s killing, but was not able to recognize the “wrongfulness” of his actions due to schizophrenia-driven psychosis.
In interviews with Dr. Andrew Kolchak, Elder said he believed his mother had been replaced by an imposter in the year leading to her death. In recalling her death to Kolchak, he described this substitute person with a pair of poisonous scissors in their mouth striking him and said he responded to defend himself.
Crown prosecutor Patrick Weir noted Elder never mentioned this belief that his mother had been replaced by a lookalike during his 2.5-hour statement to police immediately following his arrest.
”Could it be he was simply telling you a story he came up with to attempt to reduce his culpability?” Weir asked Kolchak under cross-examination.
“Yes,” Kolchak replied.
Kolchak agreed it was possible Elder was trying to come up with excuses for killing his mother because he knew he had to argue he acted in self-defence, but said Elder didn’t deny the killing to him.
A different psychiatrist who assessed Elder on the day of his arrest did not notice symptoms of psychosis, Weir said.
“Does the fact that they didn’t see any of that or these doctors didn’t report seeing any of that, does that surprise you?” he asked.
“Not based on Mr. Elder’s record and not based on my experience with our mental health system,” Kolchak said.
Weir noted several typos and discrepancies between Kolchak’s notes from his interviews with Elder and a final report, including Elder describing his mother as either “mouthy” or “mousy” and saying he likes spending time alone, because it’s “a serenity of peach.”
“That sounds nonsensical, doesn’t it?” Weir asked.
“Yes, it does,” Kolchak said.
“And so anybody reading this report would go, ‘Well this fellow, there must be something wrong with him because nobody talks like that,” Weir said.
Kolchak’s notes, which he said are not meant to be public, attribute Elder as saying spending time alone “is almost a serenity or peace,” Weir said.
Kolchak testified he’s not concerned with typos in his reports, because he is typing quickly while interviewing a person and uses them as a basis for his report, but said what is in his reports is correct.
“I make mistakes. I can acknowledge that,” Kolchak said.
The report also includes the names of two other people who Kolchak has assessed in place of Elder’s name, including a Nanaimo man who was found not criminally responsible after killing a 79-year-old man who he said he believed was a zombie or a bag of pus.
“You can see how this might be concerning to someone, because if you’re thinking about Mr. [James] Turok such that you write Mr. Turok’s name down, maybe you’re thinking about what Mr. Turok said to you or what he did to you,” Weir said.
“Absolutely, that is concerning,” Kolchak agreed.
Elder’s father and stepsister previously testified Ryan was a normal, bright, happy kid until his early 20s, when he began acting erratically, showering infrequently and talking to himself or to people who weren’t there.
He was hospitalized in 2017 for about a month after police were called during an incident in which Elder believed there were human remains in the water heater because his skin felt different in the shower and accused his stepfather of stabbing him as a toddler, the court has heard.
He was prescribed anti-psychotic medication, which he stopped taking in February 2021.
The trial continues Friday with the cross-examination of Kolchak.
