Woman thought she had powers: murder trial

The Canadian Press

Date: Thursday Jul. 15, 2010 3:33 PM ET

NELSON, B.C. — A woman accused of killing a 12-year-old autistic boy in British Columbia believed her son was "the chosen one," and her daughters were an angel and the Virgin Mary, the eldest daughter testified at her trial.

Lauren Graham told a B.C. Supreme Court on Thursday that her mother, Kimberley Ruth Noyes, once believed she had to sacrifice her younger daughter in order to resurrect her.

And she believed her now ex-husband was the devil, Graham, a 23-year-old mother herself, testified via video conference from her home in Texas.

Noyes is charged with second-degree murder in the death of John David Fulton, whose body was found in her home two days after he disappeared on Aug. 13, 2009, in Grand Forks, B.C., 500 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.

Graham, who left home at 15 but returned in the summers to visit her mother, said that Noyes, 43, had always been active and taken care of herself.

But when she came home to visit in July 2009 -- a month before the murder -- she found her mother despondent and dishevelled.

"She didn't want to talk, she'd lost 40 to 50 pounds, her eyes were sunken in," Graham said during questioning by the defence. "She looked really sick.

"She had hit rock bottom as far as mood. She wasn't there. She had a glazed-over look. If you'd tried to punch her, she wouldn't have blinked."

Graham said she called a mental health case worker, who said they would take her to the psychiatric ward. The court has already heard that Noyes was not admitted.

Dr. Richard Magee testified previously that in July 2009 Noyes was "in a fragile situation, irritable, problematic, flighty."

However, he didn't believe there was enough evidence to force her into hospital.

"It's fairly difficult to get into a hospital these days, so it must be a fairly acute case -- like suicidal," he said.

Another psychiatrist testified on Wednesday that Noyes did not recognize that she had bipolar disorder, refused to take medications, and believed she had supernatural powers.

Dr. Honald Vasi said Noyes was diagnosed in 2003 with bipolar disorder, a condition that causes manic delusional episodes as well as suicidal depressions.

It can be controlled quite well if a patient stays on medication, Vasi said in court in Rossland, B.C. But Noyes was not taking medication.

Vasi testified that he'd treated Noyes on four occasions when she'd been committed to a psychiatric ward at Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital in nearby Trail.

Each time she was in a manic phase, he said, quite psychotic and completely rejecting the notion that she was mentally ill. Noyes believed her dead father was God, that the devil was in her house and that God was coming in a helicopter to take everyone away.

"She displayed signs of agitation, anger, (verbally) aggressive behaviour, grandiosity, and no insight," he said of her first stay in September 2006.

In August 2007, Vasi saw Noyes again. She told him she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit with seven babies.

In March 2009, her third visit, he said she was aggressive, non-compliant, and had stopped taking medications some months before because she thought she did not need them.

Vasi told the court that he worried Noyes was capable of hurting herself, even taking her own life, but he did not believe she was capable of hurting another person or a child.

Noyes' fourth stay at the hospital began in April 2009. It was the last time Vasi saw her.

He told the court that only about 20 to 25 per cent of patients are fully well when they're discharged from the psychiatric ward. A couple of times, he felt that applied to Noyes.

"Where did she fall?" Crown lawyer Philip Seagram asked.

"On a couple of occasions she was fully well," Vasi said. "There was one occasion when she wasn't fully well."

Defense attorney Deanne Gaffar pointed out to the court that Noyes's condition worsened over the years yet she was prescribed smaller doses of medication than at the outset of her disease.

"In 2007, did you know she was going to sacrifice her eight-year-old daughter so she could resurrect her?" Gaffar asked.

"You had no assessment that she would physically harm another person?"

"No. I never saw any indication that she would harm a child," Vasi responded.

The trial continues.

From: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20100715/supernatural-powers-100715/