THE WORLD THAT OPRAH WROUGHT

`The nightmare won't go away' (Isabel Teotonio, Toronto Star, October 1st, 2005)

The memory of drugging and strangling his 11-year-old son in a London hotel room last year plays over and over in David Carmichael's head, like a recurring nightmare.

But hopefully, say relatives, a judge's decision yesterday that Carmichael was not criminally responsible for the first-degree murder of Ian — because he suffered from a mental disorder — is a major step in getting the grief-stricken father the help he needs.

"The nightmare won't go away, David will have to learn to cope, and getting medical attention is the first step to coping," his brother Rick told the Toronto Star after the verdict was read in court. "But no matter how healthy David gets, he'll have to deal with what he did when he was ill, and that in itself will make him sick." His brother knows of David Carmichael's state of mind from speaking with him in jail.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Helen Rady told a packed courtroom, "We will probably never fully understand the despair and desperation that led David Carmichael to take the life of his little boy.

"I believe that on July 30, (2004), Mr. Carmichael suffered from a serious depressive illness with associated delusional thinking that deprived him of the capacity to understand his actions were morally wrong.... There is no doubt in my mind that David Carmichael loved his son," she said, recalling home videos shown in court that painted him as a loving father. [...]

Carmichael, a physical fitness expert, was the national director of ParticipAction, a defunct federal program aimed at getting children fit. He also ran similar programs throughout Toronto.

During the emotional three-day trial, forensic psychiatrists testified Carmichael was suffering from a severe bout of depression and psychosis when he killed Ian. Carmichael believed Ian had an incurable brain disease, was growing increasingly violent and was planning to stab his sister to death. Carmichael was convinced that by killing Ian he'd spare the boy and his family a life of intolerable pain. However, an autopsy revealed Ian was epileptic with a relatively normal brain.

According to taped police interviews shown in court, Carmichael told police his son was mocked by other children for having learning difficulties and was in a "living hell."

Traditionally, the test for finding at accused not guilty for reasons of insanity was whether he or she understood the consequences of the action, i.e. did he understand that pulling the trigger was likely to kill him. It appears the modern test is whether the accused genuinely believed he was doing his victim a favour.