WATCH: The stepmother of a 19-year-old man charged with stabbing a boy on a Newfoundland soccer field said more support and better mental health care may have prevented the shocking incident. Ross Lord reports.
The stepmother of the young man charged with stabbing a boy on a Newfoundland soccer field said more support and better mental health care may have prevented the shocking incident.
To Doreen Layman, it seems like only yesterday her stepson Nicholas was a normal teenage boy, enjoying life with his three siblings near St. John’s, N.L. But a typical young life — that included judo classes, guitar lessons, and sports — rapidly devolved.
From continually crying in his room to fears someone was going to hurt him, Nicholas’ behaviour became bewildering, she said.
The 19-year-old was charged in September with the attempted murder on an 11-year-old boy — stabbed in the neck at random, on a soccer field in Conception Bay South. After losing a massive amount of blood, the boy was put in a medically-induced coma. He is now recovering.
Layman suggested the attack could have been prevented with more support from the mental health system.
The family received attention after contacting an emergency hotline for mental health. Two psychiatric nurses came to their home and interviewed Nicholas. He agreed to be examined by a doctor. Two hospital stays followed, but communication and compassion were largely absent, Layman said.
“We found no real, honest-to-goodness support for the family, in terms of proper description or explanation about different types of mental illness and what his problem was and what he was going through.”
At a loss to understand her son’s actions, Layman has turned to the Hearing Voices Network,an international group that claims there’s too much guesswork and too much emphasis on pills.
“We’re treating symptoms. We’re not addressing the cause,” said Jeremy Bennett, who is helping form an Atlantic Chapter of the group. “It’s kinda like getting a headache, and somebody taking a Tylenol for a headache. You don’t have a headache because you have a Tylenol deficiency.”
Nicholas Layman has been prescribed four different anti-psychotic medications in the past year. His stepmother isn’t sure any of them have worked.
Dr. Brenda LeFrancois, another member of the Hearing Voices Network, wonders if medication itself might be part of the problem.
“I really want to urge people in the community not be be quick to judge what has happened with Nicholas,” she said. “Instead, wait and see what has actually happened with him, and wait and see if it’s actually the medication that has caused his violent behaviour or not.”
It’s unclear if there will ever be an answer to what motivated Nicholas.
After a prolonged psychiatric assessment, a judge is expected to rule Thursday whether he is fit to stand trial.
As Layman, and everyone affected by the soccer stabbing, brace themselves for more anguish at the courthouse, she cautioned others whose loved ones fall victim to mental illness to manage their expectations from the mental health system.
“I have to go out myself, as a mother, a concerned person, and find the answers myself,” she said. “Because you’re not gonna get them unless you look for them yourself.”
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