By Marvin Ross
Every time I see an item on the news about a young person murdering someone (usually a parent or relative), I think a preventable tragedy involving someone with either undiagnosed or untreated severe mental illness. This is so prevalent that the Treatment Advocacy Center in the US publishes a list (or did). I
n one case a few years ago. when I saw a report on the TV news about a murder in a family, I wondered it the victim was someone I knew. It was.
An advocate I worked with a few years ago was the sister of a man who killed both his parents and I wrote about that in my book on schizophrenia. The family was desperately trying to get the young man help but could not. One social worker suggested he was lazy and just needed to get himself a job. He had schizophrenia only diagnosed after the murders. I did meet him when he was on a day pass from the hospital with his sister and he was a very nice quiet young man. Had he been diagnosed and the family listened to when he was getting ill, the parents would be alive and he would be managing.
These are not isolated cases but fairly regular occurrences. The lead guitarist for the Teenage Head was another person killed by his son with poorly treated schizophrenia. The most famous (or infamous) is Vince Li who today lives a normal life after years of being untreated until he killed his seatmate on a Greyhound Bus in Manitoba and severed his head. Found Not Criminally Responsible, he spent years in hospital and is now well.
In this case in Hamilton, Ontario, Laureano (Lawrence) Bistoyong was 22 when he picked up a chef’s knife during a Canada Day family barbecue in 2023 and stabbed his cousin Mark, aged 16, to death.
In October 2024, a Superior Court Justice found Lawrence guilty of second degree murder. However, he was remanded for a psychiatric examination as the defence had not put in a plea of insanity. On November 26, the judge told the court that it is not unusual but lawful for a defendant to ask for a finding of not criminally responsible, and, based on the forensic report, the judge changed his verdict.
The court erupted in anger with family shouting and swearing at the judge while Mark’s brother picked up a chair and smashed it. Police cleared the courtroom.
The psychiatric evaluation was done by two forensic psychiatrists, one of whom was Dr Gary Chaimowitz, chief of forensic psychiatry at St Joseph’s hospital in Hamilton.
Dr Chaimowitz testified that Laureano is responding to treatment and displayed numerous “bizarre” symptoms such as “eating his feces,” which “no normal person would engage in unless they were ill.” His symptoms started slowly and insidiously and were not noticed and that he withdrew socially and fell behind in school.
He added “In an ideal world something like that would be picked up sooner and he would receive treatment, it’s not on the families. It’s on the health-care system.”
Kudos to Dr Chaimowitz but more psychiatrists need to start speaking out and advocating for improved resources. Until we get them, more people will die and more families will suffer.
