B.C. woman who killed boy, 12, was psychotic, court hears

July 22, 2010

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By Mona Mattei, Boundary Sentinel July 21, 2010

ROSSLAND, B.C. — Both the Crown and defence lawyers agreed on Wednesday that a

British Columbia woman was psychotic when she killed a 12-year-old autistic boy.

Noyes' second-degree murder trial wrapped up on Wednesday in the small

southern B.C. community of Rossland.

The 43-year-old woman is accused of killing her neighbour, Fulton, by

stabbing him in the neck with a kitchen knife in her Grand Forks, B.C., home in

August 2009.

The B.C. Supreme Court trial previously heard that Noyes thought she needed to

" sacrifice " Fulton to allow for the second coming of Christ.

Her lawyer Deanne Gaffar told B.C. Supreme Court on Wednesday that Noyes didn't

know what she was doing during the " devastating and tragic " attack.

" The references and delusional beliefs she had existed for a number of

years, " Gaffer told Justice Mark McEwan. " She still suffers, still has some of

these beliefs. "

Crown lawyer Seagram agreed that the 20 witnesses " amply and

definitively " showed that Noyes was severely depressed and psychotic at the time

of the slaying.

Fulton's disappearance triggered a two-day, door-to-door search in Grand Forks

by police and concerned neighbours as they scoured the small border town of

about 4,000 residents, located about 520 kilometres east of Vancouver.

The boy was found stabbed to death inside Noyes' rental suite, the court heard

last week.

On Monday, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Roy O'Shaughnessy said that Noyes told him

that she was " an evil woman with seven horns " and that she feared she would have

to be cast into the desert with her children as punishment.

" On the day of Aug. 15 there is no question in my mind that her capacity to know

right and wrong was impaired . . . She could not rationally understand what she

was doing, " said O'Shaughnessy. " Her capacity to determine impulse and thought

from reality was most impaired. "

The court heard from Noyes' sisters on Tuesday who described the progression of

her mental illness and previous violent attacks.

McEwan is set to rule on the case on Friday.

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