KAMLOOPS, B.C. — The Crown has suggested that a forensic psychiatrist for the defence was biased in her assessment of a man accused of killing his teenaged girlfriend.
Dr. Sunette Lessing testified that she spent eight hours interviewing and testing Damien Taylor, who is on trial for the murder of 16-year-old CJ Fowler on Dec. 5, 2012.
Taylor, 24, has told B.C. Supreme Court he and Fowler were walking toward the Greyhound depot in Kamloops early that morning and that he saw his pregnant girlfriend on the ground, where she was dead.
Taylor said he was so paranoid and high on crystal meth and heroin that he ran from a red car, changing his clothes en route so he could run faster.
Lessing said Taylor may have been in and out of psychosis, including experiencing paranoia and hallucinations at times.
However, Crown lawyer Iain Currie accused Lessing of showing confirmation bias — ignoring information contrary to her opinion that Taylor may have been psychotic that night.
“You remember the details in a way that’s favourable to the opinion you’re expressing,” Currie said.
He also told Lessing she ignored other evidence that showed Taylor was not psychotic, including video from Royal Inland Hospital, where the couple had been hours earlier.
Video from the bus depot, details from hospital staff who dealt with the pair and from Mounties in Prince George who interviewed Taylor hours after his girlfriend was found dead all suggest that he wasn't psychotic, Currie said.
Currie also noted Taylor hid blood on his socks by covering it with a bandana, changed clothes before getting to the bus depot and lied to police about his whereabouts.
Taylor's actions suggest his behaviour was rational, Currie said.
“There’s no collateral information, other than what Mr. Taylor told you, that Mr. Taylor was on the psychotic continuum."
He called Taylor's actions after Fowler’s death “markedly inconsistent with psychosis.”
However, Lessing said Taylor may have been psychotic from the drug use and lack of sleep that he described to her.
Lessing also told the jury Taylor has normal intelligence, but his short-term memory is on par with a senior showing signs of dementia, perhaps from extensive crystal-meth use.
