Justice rules on whether Airdrie man will be held criminally responsible for killing mother

On Friday afternoon, Justice Suzanne Bensler delivered her verdict in the case of 21-year-old Alexander James Thorpe at the court of King's Bench. Thorpe was accused of the second-degree murder his mother, 48-year-old Melanie Lowen.

Justice Bensler ruled that Thorpe would not be held criminally responsible for the killing of his mother by reason of suffering from a mental disorder. Thorpe, who was present at the trial, will return to the Southern Alberta Forensic Psychiatry Centre.

Prior to the verdict being announced, Dr. Kenneth Hashman, a forensic psychiatrist took the stand on Friday morning as part of the trial. Though Dr. Hashman evaluated Thorpe and found him fit to stand trial, he recommended to the court that the 21-year-old not be held criminally responsible for his actions, an argument the accused's defence counsel was pursuing. 

Dr. Hashman told the court that Thorpe was diagnosed with bipolar disorder 1 with mood-congruent psychotic features. While Dr. Hashman said that since Thorpe has begun treatment with lithium, he has not presented with symptoms that he displayed upon admission to Southern Alberta Forensic Psychiatry Centre; though he underlined that the mental disorder that Thorpe suffers from is chronic and can be recurrent if left untreated. 

Thorpe was admitted to the Southern Alberta Forensic Psychiatry Centre, in which Dr. Hashman is the medical director and lead of forensic inpatient services on January 14, 2022, one day after he killed Lowen. According to Hashman, Thorpe was continuing to experience symptoms of what he dubbed a psychotic mental disorder for several days after his admission. Previously, Thorpe had been certified at the Peter Lougheed Centre. 

"He was observed to be rambling and disorganized in his thinking. He was very convinced that he was part of the Jerusalem syndrome, which is a phenomenon where people show up in Jerusalem and have psychotic symptoms. He stated that Jesus Christ had deemed him to be a prophet and then he was on a mission to save the world and follow orders," Dr. Hashman said. "He went on to state that God had selected him for a purpose to get rid of evil and Satan. He then advised that his mother was Satan and that he should kill her as proof to God, that he would do God's bidding."

Dr. Hashman also stated that at one point Thorpe was certain his mother was dead, though he spoke of her in the present tense. He underlined that upon admission to the  Southern Alberta Forensic Psychiatry Centre, Thorpe was experiencing grandiosity in his thinking and what Hashman described as pressured speech.

"He talked about having a vision from God. He appeared confused and unaware as to why he was brought to the forensic unit and was unsure uncertain as to what this whole court appearance he had to have was all about. He then went on to talk about his mother, which he has said many times is his number one and he was concerned when he came to the forensic unit to call her because he thought that his mother would be probably quite worried."

He also expanded on why and how Thorpe ended up wandering into a local car dealership hours after the killing.

"He thought he was getting special messages from church sermons and in fact, he was actually listening to a sermon and there were commercials from [the car dealership] and so he took that as a sign that he should [there] after the events because that is the finishing line where everybody was meeting their family and friends and his mother [would be there] to greet him."

Though Thorpe has dealt with anxiety in his earlier years and had told mental health professionals that he was worried this anxiety would balloon into larger mental health issues. Dr. Hashman said health records showed his concern was normalized, though Thorpe later admitted he may not have been fulsome in his disclosures about his mental health struggles at the time.

"While he was with us [and] things were sinking in for him in terms of the loss of his mother, he was overcome with grief. We actually made arrangements preemptively for him to join a grief group at some point in the future," Dr. Hashman said. 

Dr. Hashman said that in his view the psychotic episode that Thorpe experienced may have been triggered by a religious conference in the States only two weeks prior to the killing. The Passion Conferences are a gathering of 60,000 people between 18 and 25 years of age. Thorpe attended a conference on January 1-4 2022.

"He described it as an amazing experience and was unsure if he began experiencing psychotic symptoms, as he was sensing a sweet taste in his mouth around that time, thinking he was on a spiritual high. He noticed that his thoughts were racing and that he was only needing a few hours of sleep per night. He felt that the Holy Spirit might be moving him," he said. "He thought he smelled cinnamon and myrrh."

Dr. Hashman stated that while stress can precipitate a psychotic episode, often deemed as 'bad stress', he concurred that episodes of 'good stress' like the ones that Thorpe described may have also had an influence on his mental state. 

Earlier during the day, an agreed statement of facts was read by Crown prosecutor Jim Sawa in which he reiterated that Thorpe confessed to the killing.

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