A man charged with arson at a Kelowna home may be found not criminally responsible due to a possible mental disorder at the time the blaze was set.
Brendan Gerelle, 24, was in court Monday morning where he was expected to plead guilty to a fire at a carriage house on Galbraith Place on Aug. 30, 2019.
Instead, his lawyer, Dave Johnson, made an application request for a psychiatric assessment.
“Whether there is a mental health condition or not, I do feel like there needs to be some responsibility taken,” Jenn Kyllo told Global News. “This was absolutely horrifying for my family.”
Kyllo and her two children were living on the property when someone began deliberately setting fires on June 30.
Over the course of two months, three cars belonging to the family were torched and a fourth vehicle that belonged to a neighbor but was parked outside the Kyllo’s house was also burned.
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“Very terrifying,” Kyllo said. ” We couldn’t sleep, we just sort of all bunked down in the living room just waiting for the next thing to happen.”
Following the car fires, the carriage house behind the main house was set ablaze.
Neighbors jumped into action and made a citizen’s arrest. They held a man they said was seen starting the fire.
Police arrived and arrested Gerelle, who was charged with arson.
Gerelle lived in the carriage house back in 2017.
Defence told court that he was under the belief that the landlords at the time had implanted spyware on his computer and that if he lit one of the buildings on fire, they would see it and take the spyware off.
“I couldn’t figure out who would want to do that to us and so finding out he was mistaken, he thought that it was the previous homeowners that had still lived there and it tuned out that it wasn’t the case, so I am just relieved that it has nothing to do with me or my two children,” Kyllo said.
Gerelle has only been charged for allegedly lighting the fire at the carriage house.
No charges have been laid in connection with the four car fires.
Gerelle will be back in court on Apr. 7 for the results of the psychiatric assessment.
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