MANDEL: Man who stabbed husband was psychotic and not criminally responsible, says defence psychiatrist

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When Leahain Malcolm stabbed his husband 30 times and told the 911 operator he’d been hearing voices, an expert called by the defence believes he was not criminally responsible.

According to Dr. Derek Pallandi, Malcolm was suffering from psychosis at the time and wouldn’t have been able to understand his actions were morally wrong when he turned the couple’s west-end apartment into a bloodbath on Feb. 27, 2021.

But the psychiatrist admitted there’s always a chance of “being sold a bill of goods” by an accused killer who knows exactly what to say to claim NCR and avoid going to prison for second-degree murder.

“That’s always a concern,” Pallandi conceded in court Friday.

That was certainly the suggestion made by the prosecution: that the refugee claimant who graduated as a lawyer in Jamaica and studied Ontario law to take his bar exam here was tailoring his mental health history to bolster an NCR defence.

After Malcolm’s 911 call, Toronto Police found the butchered body of 38-year-old Dr. Rupert Brown. He’d bled out from 30 sharp force injuries, including two that would have been fatal – a stab wound to the chest and an incised wound to the left arm that severed an artery.

“The voices told me to do it,” Malcolm said to the police officer after his arrest. “I grabbed the knife, I don’t know what happened.”

Ever since, he’s claimed to have no memory of what transpired that night.

Pallandi examined Malcolm earlier this year and testified Friday that he was either suffering at the time from command auditory hallucinations – voices commanding him to kill his husband – or persecutory delusions that his husband was a demon who was going to stab him to death in his sleep.

Either way, Pallandi’s opinion was that Malcolm didn’t understand the wrongfulness of the act – contradicting the Crown’s expert, Dr. Alina Iosif, who’s expected to testify next week that she believes he knew what he was doing.

During her intense cross-examination of Pallandi, Crown Brady Donohue suggested there are many inconsistencies in how Malcolm describes his past mental health issues that should have raised doubts about his honesty.

He was first hospitalized in Jamaica after a suicide attempt in 2019 and treated for drug-induced psychosis. After arriving in Canada and claiming refugee status, he was taken to CAMH in July 2020 after telling his husband that Justin Trudeau was talking to him. He was diagnosed with recurrent substance-induced psychotic disorder after reporting cannabis, meth, crack and GHB use.

After his discharge, Malcolm stopped taking his prescribed meds – but was back to using meth – and in January 2021, he was readmitted to CAMH as a condition of his bail after being charged with attacking his husband.

He’s never been diagnosed with schizophrenia, Donohue said, and it was only during Pallandi’s assessment that Malcolm suddenly claimed he’d been hearing voices back in Jamaica – something never reported during his CAMH stays. For the first time, he also told the psychiatrist that he thought people were performing brain surgery on him and in January 2020 he saw scorpions eating his feet.

“It’s not documented by anybody in his history of psychosis until he meets with you,” Donohue noted.

Malcolm also disclosed to Pallandi during his NCR assessment that as soon as he was discharged from CAMH two weeks before the homicide, he began hearing voices. But he’d never told that to any other psychiatrist – not at the time or since, the prosecutor said.

“Isn’t that problematic?” she asked.

Malcolm also told him the TV turned on by itself, again something he’d never told anyone else.

“The fact that he is disclosing a psychotic symptom to you for the first time five years after dealing with medical professionals in Canada, isn’t that something that you think to yourself, ‘I wonder if it’s true?'” Donohue asked.

Earlier in his testimony, Pallandi acknowledged that he knew Malcolm was a lawyer who was aware of the provisions to be found not criminally responsible.

Defence lawyer Andrea VanderHeyden asked if he thought Malcolm was faking it.

“I wouldn’t answer simply by saying, ‘No I don’t have any concerns,'” he said. “But on balance I’d say when you take the history that’s long before the homicide, the conduct, his report to the police, when you put it all together, I’d say I still fall on the side that his symptoms were real.”

The trial continues next week.

mmandel@postmedia.com