Richard Edwin told a psychiatrist that he executed two strangers on the streets of Toronto because he believed white supremacists were coming from Ukraine to kill him and they’d drop “air bombs” on St. Lucia or Jamaica if he didn’t.
When a man sitting on a tree stump told him to “shoot that guy,” he did. And two days later, when they told him to “do more,” he obeyed once again.
Dr. Lisa Ramshaw testified Thursday that she believes Edwin, 43, should be found not criminally responsible for the two shocking murders two days apart in April 2022 because he was suffering from a psychosis, likely schizophrenia, and “more likely than not” couldn’t understand the moral wrongfulness of shooting 19-year-old international student Kartik Vasudev six times outside Sherbourne TTC station and then shooting 35-year-old Elijah Mahepath five times in the back near Dundas and Sherbourne Sts.
The eminent forensic psychiatrist, testifying for the defence, told Superior Court Justice Jane Kelly that while her opinion isn’t “definitive,” she believed it is “highly likely” Edwin was NCR at the time.
But it’s mostly based on what Edwin told the psychiatrist in two jailhouse interviews this past spring.
First diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2010, Edwin reportedly stopped taking anti-psychotic medication days after they were prescribed. After dropping out after one semester at York University, he lived in a Spadina Rd. roominghouse and sold self-published Black history pamphlets that Ramshaw described as containing “bizarre and extreme” content rife with conspiracy theories.
He’d been receiving “body language communication for months” from strangers who were sending him signals and telling him what to do to protect himself from the government and white supremacists, he said. He was preparing himself with extra food, a tent to use in the woods as well as firearms and body armour.
“I think it’s important everyone takes care of their security instead of waiting for 911 to come,” Edwin told Ramshaw.
Edwin had amassed five guns, four of them legally. He said he’d bought his first three – two handguns and a rifle – about five years before the killings and the AR-15 rifle and 9 mm Smith-Wesson handgun one to two years before.
“For two to three years prior to his arrest, he always carried a loaded and concealed firearm in the front waist of his pants when he left home.”
A police review of Edwin’s laptop from April 2022 found searches for body-worn cameras, tactical gear, knives, bug detectors, suppressor parts, solvent filter traps, and a book titled “U.S. Army – Urban Terrain Combat and Survival Field Manual” on Amazon. He also searched for “jamaica gun shop” on Feb. 28, 2022.
Edwin told his father he wanted to move Jamaica, where his mom had lived, and wanted help relocating his firearms.
On April 7, 2022, court heard Edwin packed his bag with a tent, peanut butter, his AR-15 rifle, and a handgun, and was headed “to the woods” when he realized he still had his cellphone and returned to leave it in his room so the government couldn’t track him.
As he headed out again, he told the psychiatrist that he hallucinated about the man who told him to “shoot that guy, so I shot him.”
Voice told Edwin to ‘shoot him’
After being told to “do more” two days later, Edwin went home and practiced shooting in front of a mirror, “as he did not want to shoot himself by accident.” He travelled to Dundas subway station and walked to TMU but was told by the voice to “hold back” and not shoot.
He then walked west on Dundas St. and saw his second victim.
“And then the voice said, ‘F— it, shoot him’ … so I shot him in the back.”
Ramshaw testified Edwin believed the people he shot were helping white supremacists – even though neither was white – and by killing them, he put “fear in their hearts” and stopped the white supremacists from acting.
During her cross-examination, Crown attorney Anna Tenhouse said prosecutors concede Edwin suffers from schizophrenia and is not faking symptoms. But she suggested the double killer was intent on being found NCR and tailored his self-report to Ramshaw to make that happen.
Unlike Ramshaw, the Crown’s expert Dr. Alina Iosif, will testify that she doesn’t believe Edwin was NCR.
Whichever opinion the judge accepts means the difference between life in prison and a far, far briefer stay in a psychiatric hospital until Edwin is no longer considered a danger.
The trial continues.
