Matthew de Grood remains a significant threat to public safety and “is not entitled to an absolute discharge” at this time, the Alberta Review Board has ruled.
The ruling came at the board’s latest disposition hearing last month.
de Grood fatally stabbed five young people at a Calgary house party in 2014. He was found not criminally responsible for the deaths of Zackariah Rathwell, Jordan Segura, Kaitlin Perras, Josh Hunter and Lawrence Hong because he was suffering from schizophrenia at the time.
Despite ruling that de Grood is not entitled to an absolute discharge, and ordering him to stay in a secure facility — either in Calgary or Edmonton — the Alberta Review Board ruled that he can ask for unsupervised passes to both cities and supervised visits to B.C. to see his sister. The board said it would be at the discretion of his treatment team to decide whether to grant him such privileges.
— With files from the Canadian Press