Warning: this story contains details of violence

The trial of Ryan Elder, the man accused of killing his mother in their Langford home in 2021, will continue as his defence team prepares to argue that Elder is not criminally responsible for the second-degree murder.

On Wednesday, Jan. 15, Justice Jennifer Power decided to reopen the trial after considering making a judgment before the defence raises their case that Elder is not criminally responsible on account of a mental disorder.

According to the Canadian Criminal Code, a defendant can be found not criminally responsible if they committed a crime "while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong."

The court heard on Tuesday, Jan 14, recordings of Elder admitting to killing Raymonde Elder, 59, while being interviewed by RCMP detectives not long after he was arrested on Dec. 30, 2021.

Elder explained that his mother "exposed her heart to me on purpose" and it felt "like it was a mercy killing," according to Crown prosecutor Patrick Weir, who quoted Elder's interview.

"I literally just went stab, stab, stab. The fourth stab, I think, went through her chest, and she went, and then she started falling over," Weir said. "I was trying to cry, because I was in so much just mental anguish like that, I didn't even know what happened."

Weir explained that days after the incident, Elder spoke with a psychologist and he "denied any recent history of abnormal perceptions or delusional thought processes," and he said at the time he had killed Raymonde in what he termed "aggressive self-defence" after she slapped him.

"He could have left, but he didn't. And then he punched her repeatedly, choked her for a lengthy period of time, then went into the kitchen, retrieved a knife, and plunged it into her seven times," said Weir. "Self-defence requires that the actions in defence be reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances."

Though the judge was expected to make a decision on Jan. 15 and then determine criminal responsibility afterwards, she instead chose to go ahead with the rest of the trial before reaching a final verdict.

"Mr. Elder's possible mental illness or mental disorder that he was suffering at the time, regardless of whether that is [not criminally responsible] or not, could play into the court's analysis ultimately as to what, if anything, he is guilty of," said Elder's defence lawyer Ryan Drury.

The defence team will start making its case on Monday, Jan. 20.