Psych assessment ordered for man charged with murder in alleged B.C. cyclist hit-and-run – BC

A Vancouver Island man accused of homicide within the alleged hit-and-run dying of a bike owner will endure a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation.

Steven Squires is charged with first-degree homicide within the Feb. 8 dying of 54-year-old Rodney Kelly, close to Cumberland.

2:15Courtenay Good Samaritan stays to assist bike owner in deadly hit-and-run

Squires shall be assessed on the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam to find out his psychological capability on the time of the alleged offence.

Kelly was biking on the Comox Valley Parkway when he was struck simply over one yr in the past.

He was discovered by Dave Nuttall, who was driving residence from work and noticed Kelly’s flashlight shining out of a ditch.

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“I spotted this needed to have been a foul accident as a result of the bike was mangled, the wheels had been folded, the body was bent,” he advised World Information in a March 2024 interview.

“I mentioned, ‘Had been you hit by a automotive?’ He mentioned, ‘I wasn’t hit by a automotive, that’s preposterous.”

2:41Household of deadly hit-and-run sufferer speaks out

Kelly later died of his accidents.

In a extremely uncommon twist, the case went from a suspected hit-and-run to a first-degree homicide cost towards Squires in simply three days.

Below the Prison Code, first-degree homicide requires planning and deliberation to kill somebody however doesn’t require the killer to know the sufferer.

Final Friday, Squires’ defence filed an software to have him declared not criminally accountable by the use of a psychological dysfunction (NCRMD).

1:59Man charged with homicide in Courtenay bike owner’s dying from hit-and-run

The defence advised the courtroom Squires didn’t know the sufferer and doesn’t have a legal file.

The courtroom has heard that when Squires was in highschool he was apprehended beneath the Psychological Well being Act, and that his household has a historical past of schizophrenia on his mom’s aspect.

It additionally heard Squires went right into a prolonged interval of isolation previous to the incident, and the way his mom discovered a drawing of him ascending to heaven.

Squires stays in custody, and his subsequent courtroom look is scheduled for March 24 in Courtenay.

–with information from Rumina Daya

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