A security guard stands outside the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto on Nov. 10, 2020, the first day of the trial for the man in the Toronto van attack.COLE BURSTON/AFP/Getty Images
A man who drove a van down a Toronto sidewalk and killed 10 people showed no anger toward women during his psychiatric evaluations, court heard Friday.
John Bradford, one of the country’s foremost forensic psychiatrists, testified that Alek Minassian’s complete lack of anger and emotion is in direct contrast with Elliot Rodger, an American mass murderer he purportedly idolized.
Mr. Minassian has pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 of attempted murder.
The defence argues the 28-year-old from Richmond Hill, Ont., should be found not criminally responsible for his actions on April 23, 2018, because of autism spectrum disorder. His state of mind at the time is the sole issue at trial, which is being held by video conference owing to the pandemic.
After a brief cross examination by the prosecution, Justice Anne Molloy, who is presiding over the case without a jury, took time to ask Dr. Bradford several questions.
“Did he ever talk to you about any degree of hatred or rage directed toward women?” the judge asked.
“In my contact with him, he didn’t show any anger whatsoever,” Dr. Bradford said.
“I don’t think he expressed any particular hatred, other than in the context of what he focused on with Elliot Rodger and why he followed that.”
Mr. Rodger went on a rampage in Isla Vista, Calif., in May 2014, killing six people and injuring 14 others before killing himself.
His “manifesto” and his video before the murders focused on his hatred toward women and has found an audience in the bowels of the internet where he is treated as the forefather of an “incel,” movement, men who are involuntarily celibate.
Mr. Minassian told police hours after the attack that he killed innocent people as part of an “incel uprising.” In that world, incels are on the bottom rung of society, below alpha males called Chads and the women they sleep with, called Stacys, and below them are “normies,” or normal people.
Mr. Minassian told a police detective he hoped the attack would upend that societal order. But in his interviews with Dr. Bradford, Mr. Minassian changed his story.
“He denies that is part of incel, although he has been disappointed in the past with his social interactions, but when confronted about being extremely angry, enraged, he denies this now categorically and maintains that he [has] only been disappointed and that he made this up about being enraged,” Dr. Bradford wrote in his report.
Dr. Bradford said Mr. Minassian told him while he was obsessed with the “incel theme,” he was not a follower. “He talked about that theme, but without much emotion,” said Dr. Bradford, who met with Mr. Minassian more than 15 times as part of a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation.
Mr. Minassian also told Dr. Bradford his motivation was prompted by anxiety about failing at a new job as a computer programmer he was set to begin a week after the attack. He also said he was motivated by the notoriety the attack would bring, even though he had planned to die in a “suicide-by-cop.”
Then, in later interviews, Mr. Minassian reverted to the incel uprising as his motivation.
Dr. Bradford testified the Mr. Minassian showed no emotion when describing in great detail the attack.
Mr. Minassian also lacks empathy, Dr. Bradford testified, but he is not psychotic and, therefore, does not meet the test to be found not criminally responsible.
Dr. Bradford did leave the door open to a “theoretical” pathway for Mr. Minassian to be found not criminally responsible through autism spectrum disorder, but noted he was not of that opinion, partly because he has little experience with that disorder.
He said Mr. Minassian suffers from no other disorder, is not and has never been psychotic, is not a psychopath and did not have depression despite the suicide plan and a later suicide attempt in jail.
“This is a unique case of somebody with no autism comorbidity who carried out a mass homicide and lived, who by his own planning would be deceased,” Dr. Bradford said.
“I knew that this was going to be unusual. As an expert, I believe my role is to give my opinion and give it as clearly as possible, but also to acknowledge that others may have a different opinion.”
Another psychiatrist testified that Mr. Minassian’s autism spectrum disorder left him fixated on mass killings and vulnerable to the ramblings of an American mass murderer.
Alexander Westphal, an American psychiatrist who is set to testify Monday, is expected to be the lone voice to say Mr. Minassian is not criminally responsible for his actions because of autism spectrum disorder.
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