Veteran who killed family, himself would have been criminally responsible, inquiry told

A former Canadian soldier who fatally shot three members of his family and then himself was aware of what he was doing and would have been considered criminally responsible for his actions had he survived, a forensic psychiatrist testified Tuesday at a Nova Scotia fatality inquiry. 

Dr. Scott Theriault performed a psychological autopsy on Lionel Desmond for the inquiry investigating the deaths of the Desmond family. 

He found that the 33-year-old Afghanistan veteran's chronic post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms did not prevent him from knowing that his actions on Jan. 3, 2017, were both morally wrong and would have been fatal. 

That day, Desmond fatally shot his wife, Shanna, their 10-year-old daughter, Aaliyah, and his mother, Brenda, inside a home in Upper Big Tracadie, N.S., before turning the gun on himself.

The fact that Desmond bought weapons — a knife on Jan. 2 and a rifle on Jan. 3 — and that he hid his vehicle before going into his in-laws' home shows that he had the capacity to plan the killings. 

But Theriault said he felt it was less likely that Desmond planned to kill his mother or daughter before entering the house, an opinion that's consistent with the RCMP investigation.   

"Then, with the presence of his mother there and his daughter … he just felt overwhelmed in the situation and he felt that there was another final solution awaiting there for him," he said. "Sometimes people theorize that killing a family member is a misguided way of saving them from future harm … that they'd be better off dead than living in a world where they didn't have any parents."  

Theriault testified Tuesday that Desmond likely intended to kill his wife and then himself, an outcome that the psychiatrist said was sparked both by the veteran's anger at sliding his wife's truck in the ditch on New Year's Eve — and by Shanna's subsequent request for a divorce. 

"Those were all the events that were the spark that lit the fire," Theriault said.

No evidence killings were a flashback: testimony

When asked why Desmond seemed to continue making plans for the future in the days leading up to the fatal shootings, Theriault said that it could be one of two things. One is that the veteran had made a plan and felt some relief in doing so, which allowed him to keep up a facade with those around him. 

The other possibility, he said, is that there was another decisive event between his visit to the emergency room on Jan. 1, 2017, and the shootings. 

There's no sign that these future plans happened, because the killings were spontaneous and a result of a flashback, the forensic psychiatrist testified. While Desmond had nightmares connected to the violence of combat — and had brief flashbacks as one of his treating psychiatrists testified — there's no evidence to suggest that happened on the day of the shootings. 

Theriault said it would be extremely rare for any person to have a dissociative event for that length of time.

Desmond had been released less than five months prior from a psychiatric in-patient program for veterans in Montreal. His treatment team at Ste. Anne's Hospital has testified he made only minor improvements in stabilizing some of the symptoms of his complex post-traumatic stress disorder, including his ability to regulate anger.

Theriault is an expert witness at the inquiry in Port Hawkesbury, N.S., which is looking at how to prevent future deaths like those of the Desmond family. 

Deaths preventable, 'not predictable'

The rarity of familicide made this event impossible to predict, Theriault told the inquiry — but he said that if the veteran hadn't had the gaps in his care, the deaths might have been prevented.  

"His risk ultimately … could have been mitigated if he'd had more consistent continuity of service provision over time — and that those service providers were aware of the vulnerabilities that Mr. Desmond had," he said.

While he noted that Desmond's continuity of care was interrupted by his decision to move back to Nova Scotia while he was an in-patient at Ste. Anne's Hospital, the treatment team should have begun discharge planning earlier and "done a warm handover," which means speaking directly to the clinical team in the community that would follow him. 

In Desmond's case, the treatment team spoke to the team in New Brunswick that had referred him to the program, but the latter would no longer be following him, aside from his Veterans Affairs case manager.  

The inquiry has also heard from many witnesses over 20 months of intermittent hearings about the difficulties Lionel Desmond had in accessing care at the end of his life.

Theriault agreed with the opinion of psychiatrist Ian Slayter that the former soldier's condition had further deteriorated following his discharge from Ste. Anne's Hospital. Slayter saw Desmond after he showed up at an emergency room in Antigonish, N.S., in October 2016.

Diagnosed in 2011

Desmond went without any therapeutic treatment for more than four months after his discharge. During that time, he saw six doctors looking for information about the next steps of his treatment in the community. 

Much of the focus of the inquiry has been on Desmond's access to health care, but it's also examining whether the health-care professionals he saw had the training to spot the risks to his family. The inquiry will also consider whether Shanna, Aaliyah and Brenda Desmond had access to appropriate domestic violence intervention. 

Desmond was first diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2011, four years after returning home from a seven-month tour in Afghanistan. 

Despite treatment, he never recovered to a point where he was able to remain in the military. In 2015, he was medically discharged.

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