Man who attacked Sudbury mom, baby to be sentenced

SUDBURY - Sentencing submissions are underway for Alexander Stavropoulos, the 28-year-old man who attacked and stabbed a woman and injured her baby in a parking lot in June 2019.

Stavropoulos has been in custody since June 3, 2019. He pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted murder and one count of breaching probation after telling police in an interview that he was out to kill a little white girl. 

He stabbed the baby’s mother to prevent her from interfering in his attempt to kill the baby, who suffered minor injuries from being punched by Stavropoulos.

Assistant Crown attorney Leonard Kim told the court the Attorney General did not grant the request to have Stavropoulos tried as a dangerous offender, despite this being the second time he is being convicted for a violent offence. He said this will proceed as a standard hearing.

The court heard numerous details about the days leading up to the attack, however, and Stavropoulos has contradicted some of his evidence, telling different stories to different people.

He also told officers after he was arrested that he had fabricated the entire marijuana-induced psychosis defence he used after he was arrested in 2018 following the transit shooting. 

He said he has never heard voices in his head in his life, and that he had expected to die that day.

He said the idea of marijuana psychosis came to him when the doctor who treated him asked him if he heard voices, and that if he did, it was a possible symptom of marijuana psychosis. 

He was sentenced to time served after being in Sudbury jail for 99 days awaiting trial. He was also sentenced to two years probation and was handed a five-year weapons ban.

Testifying on the first day of sentencing submissions was Const. Brett Burnett, Dr. Aidan Whorton and Dr. Jonathan Gray.

At the scene of the crime

Const. Burnett, a member of the Greater Sudbury Police Service’s tactical unit, was the first officer to arrive on scene on June 3, 2019, in the parking lot where Stavropoulos had just stabbed the woman.

He told the court the initial information received by the communications centre was that a female had been stabbed in the neck, and that the suspect had cut himself and was still present at the scene. He was also told a baby had some injuries from what was described as being punched.

Burnett said when he arrived, he saw a large group of people huddled together, and found out later they were attending to the victims.

He then saw a man in the distance standing and talking on his cellphone next to someone laying on the ground. The man was laying face down.

“Once I approached, I saw two knives, one an exacto knife, about 10 to 12 feet away from the suspect, and a large pool of blood under him,” Burnett said.

He said it appeared the man on the cellphone was guarding the knives to prevent Stavropoulos from picking them up again.

When he and his partner went to arrest Stavropoulos, he did not put up any kind of resistance. He even placed his own hands behind his back to be handcuffed.

Burnett said he rendered first aid, applying a compress to the gash on Stavropoulos’ neck. When ambulances arrived, he took Stavropoulos to see a paramedic. 

Stavropoulos was of sound mind, he said, and able to tell the officer who he was, where he lives and the date of his birth.

Stavropoulos would not talk about his attack on the woman and her baby, and said he would only talk to a detective, Burnett said.

Burnett said he is familiar with Stavropoulos, having been involved in the 2018 downtown transit incident which led to Stavropoulos being shot.

Due to the fact there were three injured parties and only two ambulances on scene, it was determined it would be reasonable to transport Stavropoulos to Health Sciences North in a police cruiser. They arrived in the emergency department at 4:32 p.m. that day, and Stavropoulos was discharged back into police custody at 5:25 p.m. He was then taken to police headquarters for questioning.

Many questions are asked throughout the booking process, including whether a suspect is on any medications or if he is on any illegal drugs, said Burnett. Stavropoulos told police he did not need medication nor did he take any illicit drugs. He was also asked whether he was suicidal or if he intended to harm anyone else in the room.

“His answer was, ‘no, I’m not’,” said Burnett. “Following that, we removed his cuffs and we had no issues with him at all. He simply sat on the bench.”

Burnett said he found it strange that Stavropoulos appeared stone-cold sober the entire time, considering what had just happened and that he had a self-inflicted gash on his neck.

Stavropoulos’ defence lawyer, Nicholas Xynnis, asked Burnett why he found it strange.

Burnett said given the circumstances and the fact his neck was essentially wide open and bleeding profusely, there was no panic and no complaints, and that Stavropoulos was answering questions. He was not aggressive in any manner, he said.

“In my experience, we get some sort of resistance, whether physical or verbal,” said Burnett. “He was eerily calm and co-operative.”

At the hospital

Dr. Wharton is the physician who treated Stavropoulos for his self-inflicted neck laceration. He told the court it took seven sutures to close the approximate five-inch-long gash stretching from his jaw bone down under his chin, however, the cut was not deep enough to warrant any more concern.

“I probed the wound after freezing it, and I was relieved to see it did not extend through the large neck muscle,” said Wharton. “I picked out the debris and irrigated the wound, then closed it.”

Wharton said he administered an antibiotic, then wrote a prescription for more antibiotics, as there was dirt and debris inside the wound that needed to be cleaned out prior to suturing.

Throughout the treatment, Stavropoulos appeared to be of sound mind, oriented and co-operative, Wharton said, but pointed out he is not a psychiatrist.

Wharton said he also asked Stavropoulos questions to complete a mental health status evaluation.

“I asked him if he was hearing or seeing things others weren’t, or if he was hallucinating, and he denied any of this,” said Wharton. “I asked him if he knew what day it was, who he was and where he was, and concluded he was fully oriented to person, place and time.”

Psychiatric evaluation

Dr. Gray is the forensic psychologist who performed the review in the dangerous offender application. He filed a 67-page report following his assessment. He testified as a qualified expert in the area of assessment and management of the risk of violence, as well as the assessment and treatment of offenders.

His testimony will continue on Day 2, today. Check back with Sudbury.com for more on what Dr. Gray had to say.

Final submissions will be made Sept. 27.