Attacker of Selkirk seniors said ‘God wanted me to’

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This article was published 15/08/2017 (2445 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Selkirk man who inflicted, in his own words, an “outrageously terrible” attack on an elderly couple told police he believed the world would end if he didn’t do it.

In a 2.5-hour videotaped interview with an RCMP officer, Justin Bannab recounted how he walked through the unlocked front door of the elderly couple’s home, beat an 88-year-old man who was seated at the kitchen table, and “tried to rape” an 85-year-old woman who had already gone to bed, severely injuring both victims. The interview was played in court Wednesday during Bannab’s trial before provincial court Judge Sidney Lerner.

Bannab, now 23, has pleaded not guilty on account of a mental disorder, and his defence team will ask the court to declare him not criminally responsible, which would mean he was suffering from a mental disorder at the time that made it impossible for him to understand what he was doing was wrong. Bannab was arrested about an hour after the attack on April 3, 2016, when police responded to a call about a suspicious person and found him kneeling in the middle of the street a few blocks from the victims’ home.

Although he initially refused to talk when he was interviewed by RCMP Const. Tyler Hildahl the next day, Bannab eventually took responsibility for the crimes and recounted them in detail. He told Hildahl that God told him to commit the crimes. Bannab said he believed that if he didn’t “get laid” before sundown, the world was going to end.

“I thought God wanted me to,” Bannab said. “I thought the world was going to end if I didn’t.”

“It has to be done or else we’re all dead.”

He also told the officer he’d been feeling strange in the two weeks leading up to the attack, and that he’d believed YouTube videos were talking to him, that animals could hear his thoughts and that the red house number on the victims’ home was a sign that led him there. He had never met the victims and “really had no reason to be there,” that night, he told the officer.

During the interview, Bannab describes what he did as “f— up” and questions how someone could do that to a couple who were like grandparents. He said he’s disgusted at what he did but at the time, he said, he thought “it was a matter of life or death.”

“I hurt those people way too much,” he said.

“Nobody deserves something that outrageously terrible.”

During cross-examination, defence lawyer Matt Gould questioned why the officer didn’t ask follow-up questions when Bannab spoke about delusions. He didn’t ask, for example, how Bannab knew God wanted him to do it, or whether he was hearing voices at the time of the interview.

Hildahl said he thought Bannab’s answers would likely be analyzed in court as part of a not criminally responsible assessment, but that at the time, he didn’t have concerns about Bannab’s alertness or his mental health. He said he considered the possibility that Bannab might be lying about the delusions.

The elderly victims recovered from their injuries related to the aggravated sexual assault and aggravated assault in the aftermath of the attacks, but they have both since died.

Crown prosecutors Chantal Boutin and Geoffrey Bayly closed their case Wednesday and the defence is expected to provide testimony from psychologists when the trial resumes in January.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay