Crown seeks assessment in assault case
By Shurtz, Delon on May 7, 2020.
Delon Shurtz
lethbridge herald
A Lethbridge Crown prosecutor is recommending a southern Alberta man accused of breaking into a home and stabbing a resident while he was sleeping be ordered to have a psychological assessment.
Crown Prosecutor Bruce Ainscough recommended the assessment Wednesday in Lethbridge court, where Josh Lee Goodrider faces charges of assault with a weapon, assault causing bodily harm, being unlawfully in a dwelling and housebreaking/assault with a weapon.
Ainscough told court Goodrider is accused of randomly entering a home along Highway 5 east of Cardston about 5:30 a.m. May 2 and stabbing a sleeping man in the head and chest. The victim ran to his truck and drove to the end of his driveway, where he stopped and called 911. He was taken to the Cardston Hospital and treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
When police arrived at the property, the assailant was still inside the home and told police the world was ending, the sun is expanding and the planets are going to be destroyed. He accused the victim of killing his people, and claimed he was only trying to help because people keep slaughtering each other.
He told police he is nature; he was in the First World War and had been killed many times; time travel is real; don’t trust Google because it controls people; people are ghosts and ghosts were trying to get in the victim’s home and he wanted to stop them.
Duty counsel Richard Dalby explained he had talked to the accused, who appeared in court by closed-circuit TV from the Lethbridge Correctional Centre, but he would not accept his help. Goodrider told Judge Jerry LeGrandeur he doesn’t trust lawyers and he rejected the judge’s recommendation he talk to someone at the hospital.
“I think I’m good,” Goodrider said. “I think I’ll pass on that.”
He finally agreed to contact Legal Aid, and the matter is scheduled to return to court Friday when he may be assisted by a lawyer. The Crown is also expected to renew the application under Section 672 of the Criminal Code for an assessment of Goodrider’s mental condition to determine whether he is unfit to stand trial, and if he was, at the time of the commission of the alleged offence, suffering from a mental disorder that could exempt him from criminal responsibility.
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