Michael McCormick told police he was in the grip of a crystal meth psychosis when he killed his mother, Pamella Dyer, at her home in Sooke in July 2014.
“She came downstairs and we got in a big fight right away,” McCormick told Det. Mike Darling in an interview videotaped at West Shore RCMP detachment on Sept. 17, 2014.
“I don’t even know what happened. It was a big red blur for me. It wasn’t me. Well, it was me, obviously. But it wasn’t the right Mike. It was stupid, f---ing drugged out, f---ing idiot Mike.”
McCormick, 38, was originally charged with the second-degree murder of his mother. Last month, he pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter. At his sentencing hearing Monday, Justice Brian MacKenzie heard that Dyer probably died on July 19. She was found dead the next day.
Crown prosecutor Ruth Picha, seeking a prison sentence of 12 to 15 years, told the court the cause of Dyer’s death was likely asphyxia caused by 25 fractures to the ribs, a blood clot to the lungs and a person lying on Dyer’s body.
At the sentencing hearing Tuesday, the Crown played the videotape of McCormick’s confession.
In the small interview room with photos of the crime scene taped to the wall, Darling tells McCormick his DNA has been found in blood on a milk carton found at the scene.
McCormick denies killing his mother.
Darling asks McCormick to explain how his fingerprint was found in blood on a milk carton.
“Your fingerprint is in that blood. … Did you find your mom and panic?”
No, McCormick replies.
“That evidence strongly points to you killing your mother,” Darling says.
McCormick repeats that he didn’t kill his mother. He asks to talk to a lawyer.
After a while, Sgt. John Ferguson enters the room.
“The evidence is overwhelming. It is extremely compelling and you will be convicted of this,” Ferguson says.
“All right. You guys got me. I did do it. I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t me,” McCormick confesses. “I don’t remember what happened. It was a blackout.”
McCormick says he hopes the officer will consider reducing the charge to manslaughter.
Darling continues to press for details. McCormick says he doesn’t want to remember.
“I thought she was like a creature from another planet. That’s the honest truth,” he says.
Eventually, McCormick says his mother came downstairs that morning and said to him: “You didn’t sleep all night.”
“I saw red. I was in a psychosis. She just raged. … I was convinced it wasn’t my mom. I actually thought it was somebody else. I thought she was impersonating my mother.”
McCormick tells the officers he pushed his mother, then fell on top of her. He grabbed a knitting needle and jabbed her in the neck.
Ferguson tells McCormick that police have collected evidence “and some things don’t make sense to us. … We’re curious about why those things happened.”
Ferguson also questions whether McCormick really believed his mother was a Martian.
“I think really weird things when I’m on crystal meth,” McCormick says, adding that he has believed he was an assassin or a special agent.
Psychiatric reports show McCormick had been in contact with mental-health authorities and police for crystal meth psychosis for several years, Picha said. McCormick was intoxicated by crystal meth and potentially heroin and GHB at the time he killed his mother.
A psychiatrist who examined McCormick after his mother’s death concluded he was experiencing a rage episode due to crystal meth use and stressors such as the loss of his girlfriend and a decline in his living situation, said Picha. In a psychotic state, he could have been reacting to paranoid delusions about his mother. Self-induced states, however, are excluded from designations of not criminally responsible by reason of a mental disorder, she said.
“This is a near-murder case,” Picha said. “But for the doubt surrounding intent at the time because of crystal meth delusions, he would be guilty of murder.”
The sentencing hearing continues today.
