Religious delirium: not criminally responsible for the murder of his father

A man who killed his father in Saint-Eustache was found not criminally responsible on Thursday because he was then in a religious delirium during which he thought he was Lucifer.

• Read also: A son suspected of having killed his father in Saint-Eustache

On September 12, around 4 a.m., Yves Foucher went to wake up his father Gérald, with whom he lived. He had just quarreled with his brother, and hoped that the patriarch would settle their dispute.

After getting up, the 71-year-old father was instead beaten up by his son Yves. Her boy then took a knife from the kitchen and stabbed him 14 times.

Shortly after, Yves Foucher was charged with second degree murder. On Thursday, he was found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder, at the Saint-Jérôme courthouse.

“Great Deliverance”

At the time of the tragedy, the 46-year-old man was indeed in a religious delirium and had visual hallucinations.

He imagined that his father and brother were attacking him, summarized the Crown prosecutor in the file, Ms.^and Jennifer Lepage. He believed that his father was “God Deacon”, his brother “God” and he “Lucifer”.

“He saw them ‘get very muscular’ before they started attacking him,” reads the summary of facts filed with the court. Feeling persecuted and determined to “end it,” he killed his father. He then sat on the couch and waited for the police to arrive.

Yves Foucher then felt a “great deliverance”, he confided to psychiatrist Stéphanie Borduas Pagé, who retained a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia

According to her, the accused had the general knowledge to distinguish right from wrong, but could not apply it to his personal situation. Convinced that he was then in danger, he believed he was morally justified in doing so, she said.

Mr Foucher, who has had problems with drug use, said he always felt like his father, brother and sister were out to get at him, that they were all part of an ‘attack from Heaven’ against him. In 2017, he was imprisoned, following a conflict with his sister.

“Having suffered physical assault myself from the accused, now he has managed to kill my father. My stress has increased like never before, I see it all over my head, in my nightmares, on the streets, everywhere I go,” her sister said, in a letter read by the Crown.

The accused, represented by Me Simon Dolci, will be detained at the National Institute of Forensic Psychiatry Philippe-Pinel.