A woman who killed her five-year-old son in 2014 was suffering from schizophrenia at the time and couldn’t decipher what was right and wrong, according to testimony from a forensic psychiatrist Tuesday.
Kellie Johnson, 38, is on trial for the first-degree murder of her son Jonathan Vetter. An agreed upon statement of facts details how Johnson cut her son’s throat in Saskatoon during the early morning hours of Jan. 4, 2014. She was arrested at Royal University Hospital (RUH) shortly after the incident.
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Johnson told police that “a lady was going to send my son to hell” and “I realized I had to send him to heaven before she could get to him,” according to the statement of facts. That train of thought was echoed by Dr. Mansfield Mela, who assessed Johnson at the Saskatchewan Hospital in 2014 after her arrest.
Mela testified Tuesday that Johnson had been voluntarily and involuntarily admitted to the hospital on a number of occasions in the years before the killing due to her mental health. In 2006, he states that Johnson started hearing from a delusion called “the woman.”
Weeks before Vetter was killed, ‘the woman’ told Johnson that a chain of events would eventually land her son in hell, according to Mela’s testimony. The trigger would be the death of Johnson herself, according to her account to Mela.
Mela testified that he believes Johnson felt her death was imminent on the night she killed her son and her mental disorder tilted the balance of what she knew was morally right and wrong.
“She didn’t consider any other viable options,” said Mela during his testimony.
The Crown cross-examined Mela Tuesday, questioning why Johnson changed her clothes after the killing, if she wasn’t trying to hide what she had done. According to the statement of facts, Johnson discarded her blood covered pants at St. Paul’s Hospital, before changing and eventually making her way to RUH.
The statement also claims Johnson said she was sorry almost immediately after killing her son. The Crown questioned why this would be her response, if she thought she was in-fact saving her son.
The trial is expected to continue Wednesday with a second medial professional slated to testify.
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