Fredericton shooter thought he shot 7 people, believed he was under attack

In a matter-of-fact tone, Matthew Raymond told a Fredericton court Wednesday that he began shooting people on an August morning two years ago because he believed he was under attack by demons.

Raymond described sawing off a "post" in his rifle which increased its capacity from five bullets to 10, then shooting seven people he believed were "beings" with a different DNA from humans.

There were, in fact, four victims of the shootings  at 237 Brookside Dr.: Donnie Robichaud, Bobbie Lee Wright, and police constables Sara Burns and Robb Costello.

No one else but Raymond was shot the morning of Aug. 10, 2018.

Raymond, who at that time believed God had given him the power to identify the demons, also described shooting at a window because he believed he saw a pentagram on it. His defence lawyer showed the court a photo of a window with bullet holes and a snowflake decoration on it. Raymond said it's possible that was the same window.

Family members of the victims cried in the gallery as Raymond recalled opening fire that morning. Raymond's mother kept her head bowed during this part of his testimony.

Raymond has admitted to shooting all four people but pleaded not guilty. His defence team is arguing he was not criminally responsible on account of a mental disorder.

Raymond said he didn't think what he was doing was wrong.

"I had no feeling of that whatsoever ... I had to defend myself," he told the court. "I was alone and being attacked."

Barricaded for days

Testifying for a second day, Raymond said that in the week leading up to the shootings he believed the end of times had come. By Aug. 10, he had kept himself barricaded in his apartment with his guns and calculations for about five days.

He wasn't sleeping. He noted the time in minute increments and did calculations with those numbers for so long his pen ran out of ink. A notebook shows him noting 3:40 a.m., 3:43 a.m., 3:48 a.m. and so on.

He continued doing the calculations with the indents his empty pen made, he said, then switched to pencil. He said he couldn't stop doing the calculations and couldn't go to sleep for fear of giving the demons a chance to come in and kill him.

Presented with the calculations in court, Raymond said repeatedly that he doesn't understand what they meant or why he was doing them.

He said between Aug. 9 and 10, he didn't sleep. He was doing calculations by flashlight, but had added tape to the flashlight to dull the light, so he wouldn't be discovered. He said he also put tape on the floor so people couldn't hear him moving around.

'I can defend myself better with 10'

As the sun rose on Aug. 10, Raymond said he ate something, then removed the post in his rifle that limits the number of bullets he can have in the magazine. His lawyer asked him why he did this.

"The end times were happening," he said. "I can defend myself better with 10 [bullets]."

He said after loading his rifle he walked to his storage room.

"That's when I felt I was under attack, I saw a demon, I levelled the rifle and I fired," he said, adding that he might have shot five times at the same person. He then saw another person in a car.

"In the car, I saw a demon and I fired," Raymond said. "I didn't have any actual thought, it just happened."

Raymond testified Tuesday that in the days leading up to Aug. 10, he almost shot two men he thought were demons on two separate occasions, but did not. It's not clear from his testimony why Aug. 10 was different.

Raymond described moving from his living room to his storage room, then seeing an officer on the ground with a rifle.

He pointed his rifle at the officer "and then he shot me." He said if the officer didn't shoot him first, "I probably would have shot them."

Raymond said when he was in the hospital, he was surprised he was still alive, and thought maybe the end times never happened.

What triggered the end times?

Raymond said he thought the end times had come because he saw an "Islamic" man in his apartment complex and believed the man had sent his young son to threaten him. He thought he heard the child say to him, "Come out and play, baby," outside his window.

Raymond said he doesn't know exactly when he heard this but believes it was a few days before Aug. 10.

After he heard this "threat," he barricaded his door and loaded his guns — a shotgun and a rifle.

He thought people in his apartment building were demons who were coming to kill him. He heard thumping on the walls and doors.

Raymond said he believed he was threatened because people in his apartment complex had found out he'd protested against an anti-Islamophobia bill in 2017. The court previously heard Raymond was protesting against legislation calling for a national action plan on racism, including anti-Islamophobia. He wore a sandwich board that read "No Sharia-law."

"They didn't like me protesting against Islam," Raymond told the court.

Defence lawyer Nathan Gorham asked him why he thought demons cared if he protested against Muslims.

"Because of the laws that they do have, Sharia law, and I figured the demons liked it, they wanted it," he said.

Raymond said he believed "There's a good chance [Muslims] were mainly demons."

He also said he believed his landlord was a demon and had broken into his apartment and was spying on him. He also believed his mother was a demon. Raymond also left newspapers on his bed with the words "hoax" and "serpent" written on them with a black marker. Raymond said that this was to leave a message to the demons that he knew about their "shenanigans."

Raymond said multiple times he no longer believes demons exist, but he said he still believes the child did say "come out and play, baby," to this day.

"Oh yes, it positively happened," he said.

Gorham asked what he thinks of the boy's father saying his son couldn't speak English.

That could be true, Raymond said, but it doesn't mean he couldn't speak some English, "just four or five words."

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