SASKATOON — Shortly after she killed her five-year-old son, a Saskatoon woman told a nurse she was having a hallucination and may have hurt the boy because she was trying to save him from going to hell.
The information was presented Tuesday in an agreed statement of facts in the first-degree murder trial of Kellie Dawn Johnson.
Lawyer Leslie Sullivan is trying to prove that her 36-year-old client is not criminally responsible.
Five-year-old Jonathon Vetter was pronounced dead when officers arrived at the home after receiving a call from the boy's grandfather.
The statement of facts say Johnson slit her son's throat on Jan. 4, 2014, while her other son was sleeping in the same bunk bed.
It also says Johnson then took a cab to one hospital, dumped her bloody clothes in a garbage can, then took a taxi to McDonalds, where she ordered food, then took another cab to Royal University hospital, where she was arrested.
Sgt. Kevin Montgomery said Johnson appeared sober, calm and “didn't seem to show much emotion” before she was charged with first-degree murder.
She told Montgomery that she "had a really bad hallucination" and had to send her son to heaven because she thought a lady was going to send him to hell by "continually molesting him."
Johnson appeared to understand the conversation, Montgomery said.
As soon as the judge-alone trial began, court entered a voir dire, or trial within a trial, to determine if Johnson's police interview would be admissible. Justice Neil Gabrielson ruled that the Crown proved the statement was voluntary and admitted the video as evidence.
On the video, Johnson tells Montgomery that her mental health issues began about 2010 when she started seeing a woman who would threaten to send her and her two young sons to hell.
"Whatever it is, it's quite scary, it's quiet real," she said. Johnson said the woman was constantly stalking her and would often speak to her through the letters on Johnson's computer keyboard.
Johnson said she was getting injections of Clopixol, an antipsychotic often used to treat schizophrenia, but had been off the medication for about a week and a half because it made her feel dizzy. She also said she would periodically take Olanzapine, another type of antipsychotic.
"We have to demonstrate that Ms. Johnson was suffering from a mental disorder, and I would think that that's not an issue here," Johnson's lawyer said outside court.
"Once that is in place, the next step is to determine whether it rendered her incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or of knowing that it was wrong."
The trial was adjourned until May after an expert witness could not testify due to illness.
Johnson will remain in custody at the North Battleford Forensic Hospital until then.
