A judge found Thursday that Ian Hammond "committed the intentional, and planned and deliberate killing" of his father - the act of first-degree murder - but decided the young man was not criminally responsible for his actions because of a mental disorder.
Calling the facts of John Hammond's death "horrifying and tragic," Superior Court Justice Alexander Kurke said he agreed with a forensic psychiatrist that as a result of his mental illness Ian Hammond "lacked the capacity to rationally decide whether his conduct was right or wrong and hence to make a rational choice about whether to do it or not."
Dr. Jeff Van Impe told the court Wednesday that the 18-year-old was psychotic and delusional when he repeatedly stabbed his father John Hammond with a butcher knife on March 15, 2014 in Blind River.
In his six-page decision, Kurke noted Van Impe's opinion that Ian appreciated his conduct was legally wrong, but he wasn't capable of knowing his actions towards his father were wrong because of "his prominent persecutory delusions."
He believed his father was going to end his life and believed he was in imminent danger when he preemptively stabbed his father, the judge said.
Ian kept stabbing the man to forestall future violence from his father.
"In other words, Ian Hammond perceived his actions as right and justifiable," Kurke said.
John Hammond died shortly after his son stabbed him in his Blind River home and on the street as the older man tried to get away from his attacker.
The 69-year-old man suffered 16 stab or slash wounds to his chest, torso, back, arms and face, as well as defensive wounds to his hands.
He bled to death as result of an injury to his chest that severed thoracic and coronary arteries.
At the end of a two-day hearing this week, prosecutor David Kirk and defence counsel Don Orazietti had urged the judge to find the young man not criminally responsible.
"This is one of the most tragic cases I've ever been involved in. It was very difficult to deal with all the issues in this case, particularly the mental health issues," Orazietti said in an interview following Kurke's decision.
"It's so sad," he said, as Ian's mother and other family members hugged the young man before security escorted him from the Sault Ste. Marie courtroom.
"The kid was so sick and there was nothing there for him."
The judge ordered Hammond to be held at the Algoma Treatment and Remand Centre until he can be transported to the forensic psychiatric facility of the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care in Penetanguishene, Ont.
He will be detained at Waypoint, where he has been since last August, while he awaits a hearing before the Ontario Review Board.
An independent tribunal, the board determines whether individuals who have been found not criminally responsible by the courts, have progressed enough in treatment to be released with no strings attached, released with terms or kept in hospital.
After he finished his decision, the judge asked Ian if he had understood what had gone on for the last few days.
When Ian nodded yes, Kurke urged him to work with the staff at Waypoint to help determine what is best for him.
"I encourage you to try to exercise some trust towards staff."
Kurke told John Hammond's family members and friends, who had been in court all week, that he hoped the process answered some of their questions.
"In a case like this it's a sad reality that you'll never get all the answers," he said. "I hope you are able to find peace at the end of this road."
In court on Tuesday and Wednesday, Kurke heard lan had taken his parents 2010 separation hard, and by the beginning of 2013, his last year in high school, he had begun to change.
He stopped participating in school sports, seemed depressed, wasn't eating or sleeping well and was missing school.
His doctor attributed this to his excessive workouts and consumption of sports drinks.
Hammond began showing signs of a paranoia in the spring of that year.
In September, he started an engineering program at Sudbury's Cambrian College, but soon returned home for medical reasons.
The teen was convinced that a friend had stolen his wallet and his roommates were poisoning him.
He was prescribed an anti-depressant, which he stopped taking after two weeks, because he said the medication made him feel suicidal.
Ian became increasingly paranoid and withdrawn.
He believed his doctor was poisoning him with medication because he wanted to get rid of people with attention deficit disorder and that his family was talking about him in codes.
In January 2014, he became increasingly anxious about a trip he was going to take with his father to Jamaica and eventually didn't go.
Ian told his mother Donna Hammond that his father wanted him to pack a larger suitcase because John was going to cut him up and put him it.
He said he didn't trust his father and feared he was going to be kept as a slave.
As his paranoia grew, he was convinced that his cigarettes were laced with poison and his dad was poisoning him garden seeds.
Attempts were made to change his medications, but he stopped taking them two weeks before he attacked his father.
In his decision, Kurke noted Ian was using marijuana and other street drugs during this time and misused his prescription drugs, preferring to snort the amphetamine Adderal because of the immediate high it produced.
On the day he killed John, everything his father said and did seemed to feed into his delusional belief system, and John's comments were interpreted as threats, the judge said.
When John reached for a knife drawer while the pair was making dinner, Ian who was cutting lettuce for a salad, stabbed his father because he thought he was going to harm him.
"In Ian's view, in self defence, he preemptively stabbed his father, and kept stabbing him as he followed John Hammond round the house and outside," Kurke said.
Van Impe, a forensic psychiatrist at Waypoint, who conducted a two-month assessment of Ian following the killing, told the court the teen had developed a psychotic disorder at the end of his year in high school that subsequently turned his suspicions into paranoia, leading to an intense distrust of his doctors, friends and family.
By January 2014, his paranoia focused on the planned trip to Jamaica and his most psychotic symptom focused on delusions about his own safety.
The psychiatrist said Ian's use of marijuana and street drugs exacerbated, but likely didn't cause his mental illness, because the psychotic symptoms continued while he was at Waypoint and wasn't using the drugs.
He concluded Ian was suffering from a disease of the mind, which he identified as a psychotic disorder.
Previous SooToday coverage of this story:
Delusions led to fatal attack on father, says psychiatrist
Son appeared 'intent on killing' during knife attack on father: witnesses
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