A Langford man who was found not criminally responsible for the violent killing of his mother due to mental disorder will likely remain held in a forensic psychiatric hospital for at least the next year.
That was the recommendation Wednesday from Crown counsel, the director of the psychiatric hospital and the defence lawyer for Ryan Robert Elder, who stabbed, punched and strangled his 59-year-old mother, Raymonde Elder, in late December 2021 during a schizophrenia-induced psychosis.
Raymonde Elder’s body was found in her mobile home by police conducting a wellness check on Dec. 31, 2021. Her last contact by phone or text message had been on Christmas Day.
Ryan Elder spent six days coming and going from the mobile home he shared with his mother, including buying new clothes and ditching his bloody clothes, until police found him in the home with his mother’s body.
During trial, court heard Ryan Elder had been a normal, happy kid until his early 20s, when he began acting erratically, showering infrequently and talking to himself or to people who weren’t there.
Raymonde Elder sought help for her son’s mental health numerous times. At the time of the killing, Ryan Elder had stopped taking his anti-psychotic medication.
“The evidence indicates that Raymonde Elder was actively seeking psychiatric assistance for her son right up until the days before her death. This is perhaps the greatest tragedy of this case,” B.C. Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Power said when she found Ryan Elder not criminally responsible in March.
Ryan Elder told forensic psychiatrists who examined him before the trial that he believed his mother had been replaced by an imposter when he killed her.
He has been held in a forensic psychiatric hospital since the March ruling, pending a disposition hearing on Wednesday to determine whether he should be detained in a psychiatric hospital, released with conditions or released without any conditions.
It was recommended by all parties that he be held for the next 12 months and banned from having weapons and consuming cannabis or other controlled substances.
Ryan Elder’s lawyer agreed with the recommendation but advocated for the possibility of escorted visits into the community if approved by the hospital.
Dr. Robert Lacroix, who has been treating Ryan Elder, said he would not recommend escorted trips out of the hospital because he is not at the stage of his recovery to reintegrate into the community.
Lacroix said he doesn’t believe Ryan Elder presents a risk of random, impulsive violence driven by psychosis. His risk instead is more likely to be driven by untreated and unaddressed delusions involving a specific target, he said.
Ryan Elder answered questions from his lawyer, Crown counsel and doctors, often giving rambling responses and distancing himself from his mother’s murder by referring to it as the “index offence” when asked about the killing.
Asked directly if he killed his mother or someone else, Ryan Elder said he wouldn’t know because he’s never been a mother, and he has “never done the DNA testing.”
The word mother is a “very nurturing word,” he said.
“I would probably be able to describe that person as Raymonde Elder, but I would not be able to describe that person I had a physical altercation with as a motherly person,” he said.
He continued to say he knows he killed a human being, and he knows the person identified themselves as Raymonde Elder.
When asked if he believed his mother was dead, Ryan Elder paused before asking, “Do I have to?”
“I’m asking whether you do. Not whether you have to believe it. Do you believe it?” Dr. Jeanette Smith, a forensic psychiatrist on the panel, asked.
“Yeah,” he responded, sounding unsure.
The review board said it expected to provide a decision on Elder’s detention in hospital within a few days, with reasons for the decision to follow in the coming months.
The review board must hold a hearing at least every 12 months in cases where a person is detained in the forensic psychiatric hospital to assess whether the threat posed by the person has changed and whether restrictions should be modified.
