By Workers
The Canadian Press
Posted August 6, 2025 9:55 pm
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The B.C. Supreme Court docket says a Chilliwack, B.C., man who stabbed his spouse to demise in 2024 was affected by a “delusional perception” when the violent killing occurred, discovering him not criminally answerable for her homicide.
The court docket ruling posted on-line Wednesday says Joseph Berkiw, now 70, killed his spouse, who can’t be named beneath a publication ban, whereas believing he was “saving her” from being tortured or raped by individuals who have been focusing on the couple.
It says Berkiw labored as a machinist and had turn into “preoccupied” with considerations about not getting paid from his job, and started appearing in uncommon and paranoid methods within the lead-up to the killing.
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The ruling says the couple lived with their grownup son, who had referred to as police over his father’s “weird behaviour” on Jan. 8 and Jan. 12, 2024, however officers decided he didn’t meet the factors to be apprehended “beneath the Psychological Well being Act as a result of no person indicated he offered an instantaneous threat to himself or anybody else.”
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The court docket ruling says Berkiw attacked his spouse with a knife on Jan. 17, stabbing her earlier than being taken to the bottom by his son, and he or she referred to as police in “excessive misery,” telling the call-taker that her husband was mentally unwell and “attempting to kill all people.”
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The ruling says Berkiw broke freed from his son’s grasp and received one other knife, slashing his spouse’s throat and reducing his son, who had tried to guard her, and the court docket discovered he was affected by a psychological dysfunction that included “delusional beliefs” that rendered him “incapable of understanding that his actions have been morally mistaken.”
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