Mentally ill North Van killer sentenced to at least 12 months in psychiatric care
A mentally ill North Vancouver man who beat his father to death with a wrench and put his mother in a coma last July will spend no less than the next 12 months in a Lower Mainland psychiatric hospital.
But the sister of the deceased — and aunt to the 28-year-old killer Jordan Campbell Ramsay — says her nephew should be locked up indefinitely.
On Wednesday, a B.C. Review Board panel ordered Ramsay, who suffers from severe schizophrenia, into the immediate custody of the Colony Farm Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Port Coquitlam.
Under order of the three-member panel, Ramsay must remain under the authority of the psychiatric hospital director, must be of good behaviour, must present himself to the panel when required and may not "acquire, possess or use any firearm, explosive or offensive weapon."
Ramsay's custodial sentence is open for review after 12 months, on Aug. 15, 2013.
Ramsay was found not criminally responsible for the second-degree murder of his father, Donald Ramsay, 53, and the attempted murder of his mother, Wendy Ramsay, in the family's North Vancouver apartment, by a B.C. Supreme Court judge on July 6.
In her findings, Judge Deborah Kloegman blamed the Ramsay family's decision to replace Jordan’s prescribed anti-psychotic drugs with a controversial multivitamin therapy regiment for contributing to the brutal attack on the Ramsays as they slept in their West 28th Street apartment last November.
"Had he remained on the medications he had been on prior," Jordan's aunt, LeeAnn Ramsay, told The Outlook on Thursday, "my brother would be alive today."
Wendy Ramsay, 54, barely survived the severe head injuries she suffered that night. But now recovered from her coma, Wendy asked the review panel Wednesday to remove the no-contact order barring her from seeing her son.
"She is on board with his treatment and is anxious to help with his recovery," said LeeAnn in an email exchange with The Outlook.
LeeAnn added, however, that she believes 12 months is too soon to review her nephew's sentence and that to do so would be a dangerous mistake.
"The prospect of him being released in the future is disconcerting and I wish that due to the horrific nature of his offence that they could work in increments of far greater than one year," LeeAnn said. "He should remain there for the rest of his life."
Jordan Ramsay had been battling schizophrenia for two decades and was on leave from the psychiatric ward at Nanaimo General Hospital when he attacked his parents in the early-morning hours of Nov. 5, 2011.
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