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A mother who stabbed her one-year-old infant during psychosis should not be prevented from seeing her other children, a lawyer told a board tasked with reviewing her case.
The Criminal Code Review Board of Manitoba is considering which conditions to impose on the woman’s freedom after she was found not criminally responsible in the 2024 death of her child in Wasagamack First Nation.
The woman was 26 when she killed the boy in a home run by child welfare authorities in Wasagamack. Court heard in November she thought Child and Family Services were holding her family hostage, and that she believed God wanted her to kill the child to protect him from harm.
Both the woman’s lawyer and the Crown said during a hearing Monday afternoon she should detained in a mental health hospital as recommended by her treatment team in a report to the board.
But the Crown also asked for her to be barred from contacting her children while it evaluates risk to their safety.
“There’s just too little information available for the board to have any comfort that a proposed avenue of visitation can be healthily practised,” Crown attorney Scott Cooper said calling for restrictions on both supervised and unsupervised visits.
Lawyer Carley Mahoney said the woman’s condition has stabilized with treatment, and that seeing her children would help her recovery.
“It’s going to be something in her future and it’s going to be something that’s important,” Mahoney said. “I say now is the time, when we have this controlled environment with these experts who are there to help her, to help the family … to start that process.”
The woman was diagnosed with schizophrenia after her arrest. Mahoney said she could not contact her children until this week because of the trial, since they were witnesses to the killing.
The woman has been hospitalized at the Health Sciences Centre’s PX3 forensic psychiatry unit since Dec. 15.
Responsive to treatment: Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist who assessed her as part of the report said during the hearing the woman presents a low to moderate risk to reoffend, though it’s hard to say how that will change at this point in time.
Dr. Amir Shamlou said she no longer experienced delusions about CFS and that she seemed to be fairly responsive to treatment.
Shamlou said the woman reported she still heard some voices who told her to pray, but that it’s not reasonable to expect that someone with schizophrenia will have no symptoms.
“They enter her consciousness and then they go away,” Shamlou said. “She’s not compelled to act on them, and that’s an important distinction to make.”
The psychiatrist said being outside the controlled environment of a hospital could cause a relapse, with long-term recovery also depending on social factors like stable housing.
The woman was also diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder related to her son’s death, and has struggled with meth addiction in the past.
Shamlou said meth use has a very high potential to trigger psychosis, but that the woman has been open to pursuing addictions treatment.
The lawyers also agreed to recommend for the woman to be ordered to attend addictions programming, and bar her from having weapons.
The board said it expects to deliver a decision this week, with reasons to follow at a later date.