The B.C. Supreme Court docket says a Chilliwack, B.C., man who stabbed his spouse to loss of life in 2024 was affected by a “delusional perception” when the violent killing occurred, discovering him not criminally answerable for her homicide.
The court docket ruling posted on-line Wednesday says Joseph Berkiw, now 70, killed his spouse, who can’t be named below a publication ban, whereas believing he was “saving her” from being tortured or raped by individuals who had been focusing on the couple.
It says Berkiw labored as a machinist and had grow to be “preoccupied” with issues about not getting paid from his job, and commenced performing in uncommon and paranoid methods within the lead-up to the killing.
The ruling says the couple lived with their grownup son, who had referred to as police over his father’s “weird behaviour” on Jan. 8 and Jan. 12, 2024, however officers decided he didn’t meet the standards to be apprehended “below the Psychological Well being Act as a result of no person indicated he offered a direct danger to himself or anybody else.”
The court docket ruling says Berkiw attacked his spouse with a knife on Jan. 17, stabbing her earlier than being taken to the bottom by his son, and he or she referred to as police in “excessive misery,” telling the call-taker that her husband was mentally sick and “attempting to kill everyone.”
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The ruling says Berkiw broke freed from his son’s grasp and received one other knife, slashing his spouse’s throat and reducing his son, who had tried to guard her, and the court docket discovered he was affected by a psychological dysfunction that included “delusional beliefs” that rendered him “incapable of understanding that his actions had been morally mistaken.”
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