After over two weeks of witness and evidence examination, the Crown and defence have made their closing arguments in the trial of Ryan Elder, who is accused of killing his mother, Raymonde Elder, in her Langford home at the tail-end of December 2021.
During the trial, the defence team argued that Elder, 30, was not criminally responsible for the crime based on his schizophrenia diagnosis, and his alleged delusions at the time of the offence based on the testimonies of two forensic psychiatrists who interviewed Elder in 2024.
"[A psychiatrist] opined that because of schizophrenia-driven psychosis at the time of the killing, Mr. Elder believed that his mother was trying to kill him and his actions were necessary to defend himself against her," said defence lawyer Schuyler Roy in his closing submissions on Feb. 18. "And therefore, due to his psychosis, it was Dr. Kolchak's clinical opinion that Mr. Elder was unable to know the moral wrongfulness of his action."
Roy argued that Elder's psychosis had deprived him of rational perception, which deprived him of rational choice.
According to the Canadian Criminal Code, a defendant can be found not criminally responsible if they committed a crime "while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong."
Psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Kolchak gave testimony that in his interviews, Elder had explained he thought his mother hated him and was torturing him, plus attacking him and defecating on his bed and his belongings before the murder.
It's believed that Elder killed Raymonde, 59, shortly after Christmas Day 2021 when he punched, strangled and stabbed her to death before she was found by police conducting a welfare check at her residence on Dec. 31, 2021.
The Crown prosecutors noted that they believe the offence happened in the late night of Dec. 25 or the early morning of Dec. 26 as Raymonde's last outgoing text was at 9:34 p.m. on Dec. 25, and in the early morning of Dec. 26, Elder was seen buying clothes at Walmart, presumably to replace his bloody clothes.
Crown counsel Patrick Weir said he isn't disputing the fact that Elder faced troubles with his mental health, but that his schizophrenia diagnosis was in 2018, years before the killing, which doesn't prove he was facing delusions at the time of the offence.
"And the reason that that's not important, that he had [schizophrenia] in 2018 or 2019, is because there are lots of schizophrenic people who don't murder," argued Weir. "And there are lots of murderers who aren't schizophrenic. So those two things don't necessarily mean that if you're schizophrenic, you're going to be a murderer."
He also highlighted that Raymonde's last text mentioning her son on Dec. 25 – which reads "Ryan and I are just together, just having a quiet time at home." – does not indicate any ongoing psychosis and doesn't suggest that he was "feeling that she's persecuting him."
"He's trying to do anything he can to make her the bad guy and to garner sympathy," said Weir. "This is a gentleman who's immature, he's desperate, he's manipulative, he's obstructive, and so he is saying all of these things – not because he believes that they're based in reality, although many of them are – he's saying these things because he has to be the victim."
Closing submissions are expected to come to an end on Thursday, Feb. 20, with the judge rendering her verdict at a later date.
