The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled it will not hear the case of Matthew de Grood, a Calgary man found not criminally responsible (NCR) for killing five young people nearly 10 years ago.
Katie Perras, Lawrence Hong, Josh Hunter, Zackariah Rathwell and Jordan Segura were stabbed to death at a house party in the Brentwood neighbourhood in April 2014.
de Grood was seeking to have Canada’s top court overturn a 2022 decision by the Alberta Review Board (ARB) — as well as the Alberta Court of Appeal’s decision on the disposition.
He was asking the Supreme Court to set aside his full warrant and instead grant him an absolute discharge — or at minimum — grant him a conditional discharge.
On Thursday morning, the Supreme Court dismissed his application for leave.
After the application was dismissed, Global News received an emailed statement from Perras’ father.
“The five families are pleased that the Supreme Court dismissed de Grood’s appeal outright,” Gregg Perras wrote. “The NCR laws may be federal in nature, but it is up to each province to enforce those provisions.
“The Alberta Review Board assessed the evidence and findings of the treatment team back in 2022 and now again in 2023 and agreed with his treatment team that de Grood still presented a high risk to the public. The Alberta Appeals Court soundly disagreed with the baseless assertions made by his lawyer back in 2022 regarding bias of the ARB and their judgement. Clearly, the Supreme Court found no reason to reopen the 2022 decisions by the review board and Alberta’s provincial appeals court.”