Judge finds woman with schizophrenia not criminally responsible in stabbing death of 14-month-old son

A Manitoba woman has been found not criminally responsible for stabbing her 14-month-old son to death in a case a judge said highlights fatal gaps in the province’s mental-health system.

“It goes without saying that the death of this child in this manner is a tragedy,” said King’s Bench Justice Sarah Inness. “In the context of this loss, there is an unexplained gap, a gap in the system where (the accused) fell through.”

The 27-year-old Island Lake First Nation woman was arrested Feb. 17, 2024, after her infant son was found stabbed to death in the bedroom of a temporary suite secured for his family by Child and Family Services. The woman — who has since been diagnosed with schizophrenia — and her four young children and a younger sibling were staying in the suite as she awaited placement in a psychiatric facility.

Court heard the family was placed in the suite after CFS had received multiple reports of the woman and her children wandering the community without adequate clothing.

The woman underwent multiple medical and mental examinations, after which doctors ordered that she undergo a mental assessment at Selkirk Mental Health Centre or Health Sciences Centre, Crown attorney Alanna Littman told court, reading from an agreed statement of facts.

Doctors were alerted a psychiatric bed had become available at Selkirk on Feb. 16, and a medevac unit was dispatched to the community, but within hours doctors were told there was a bed delay and it would not be available until the following day.

“Attempts were made to send her to Health Sciences Centre instead,” but staff there said the woman could not be accommodated, Littman said.

The woman returned to the temporary suite with her children, along with two temporary workers hired by CFS.

The next morning the workers were awakened by two of the children who led them to a bedroom where they saw the woman holding a knife over the bed of her infant son, blood visible on her hands and arms.

As the workers removed the other children from the suite, one of them said: “It’s OK, Mommy sent him to heaven.”

Police arrived to find the infant swaddled in a blood-soaked blanket, a large gaping knife wound to his chest.

When interviewed by police, the woman said CFS was “holding her hostage” and believed workers were planning to rape her children.

“She said she did not want her (son) to be raped by CFS, she wished him to be happy, so she took his life,” Littman said.

The woman said she was acting on the word of God.

“She said she did the right thing… and wanted to put him in God’s hands in heaven,” Littman said.

The killing occurred after failed efforts to get help for the woman, said Inness, who questioned why the woman could not have been transported to an emergency room as she awaited placement in a psychiatric facility.

Inness said the findings of two forensic reports make clear the woman was in a state of “active psychosis” at the time she killed her son.

The woman’s case will now be overseen by the Criminal Code Review Board, who will decide if and when she is to be released from a secure psychiatric facility.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca