In wake of Chinatown stabbing, victims’ families question psychiatric releases
Global News
Rebecca Mayrhofer and other victim advocates have long sought reform of the system handling offenders deemed not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder.
Rebecca Mayrhofer said she felt “100 per cent frustrated” when she heard about a triple stabbing in Vancouver’s Chinatown on the weekend, that police allege was committed by a man on day release from psychiatric detention.
But she wasn’t surprised.
Blair Evan Donnelly, 64, had previously been found not criminally responsible for stabbing his teenage daughter to death in 2006 and was sent to B.C.’s Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam.
“These are things that should not be happening … None of these. Not with this person on the weekend. Not with Ken. They are preventable,” Mayrhofer said.
“Ken” is Kenneth Barter, who killed Mayrhofer’s brother Nathan Mayrhofer with a hammer in 2010 during a psychotic episode in Vernon, B.C. He then dismembered his friend, double bagged the remains and put them in his refrigerator.
Like Donnelly, Barter was found not criminally responsible for the killing, and was confined to the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, before decisions by the B.C. Review Board allowed both men to return to the community unescorted.
Like Donnelly, Barter would be re-arrested. He was charged with assault and assault with a weapon in 2022. Those charges were stayed this year, and he remains in the community because of an absolute discharge by the review board in 2019.
Barter could not be reached for comment.
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