Testimony continued last week in the second-degree murder case against Kimberley Ruth Noyes who is accused of killing 12-year-old John David Fulton in Grand Forks last summer.

Both an adult daughter and a forensic psychiatrist confirmed Noyes’s mental illness.

Lauran Graham, the 23-year-old daughter of Noyes, spoke by teleconference from Allen, Texas. She described a rocky childhood. She said her mother wasn’t always psychotic, but their relationship didn’t improve much until after she left home at age 15. She visited her mother every summer and alternate Christmases over the next few years.

“Typically, she’d pick me up at the airport, sometimes crying, joyful. She would get activities ready for the summer.”

But as the years passed, when Graham visited or phoned, her mother’s mental state got worse. According to her mother, her stepfather was the devil, her little brother was “the chosen one,” her sister was an angel, and she was “Mother Mary.”

“She said my grandfather was coming back in a black helicopter to save everybody. She bought furniture for him.”

In 2007, Noyes told Graham her sister would have to be sacrificed. Asked by whom, Graham said, “I believe she said she would do it.”

On her last visit in July 2009, she was shocked by her mother’s condition.

“I had never seen her that depressed before in her entire life. It was beyond depression. She was gone.”

Noyes had lost 40 or 50 pounds, her eyes were sunken in, her clothes baggy and hair unkempt.

“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. She was killing herself, not eating, wasting away.”

The house was cluttered and dark. The air was stale and there were dirty dishes and spoiled food in the kitchen.

Graham called the mental health caseworker assigned to her mother.

“I was kind of rude to her, like, where had she been? Did she not notice that my mom’s health was fading?”

The caseworker said they would get her to the hospital, but as was heard in previous testimony, that didn’t happen. Dr. Richard Magee, the psychiatrist in charge, didn’t see enough evidence to have Noyes committed at the time.

This was only a few weeks before the murder.

Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Shabehram Lohrasbe, who examined Noyes and went over the case, said he believed there is “no shadow of a doubt that Noyes has a major mental disorder.”

Having seen more than 6,000 cases in 25 years, Lohrasbe could easily spot someone who was trying to fake mental illness and didn’t believe that was the case with Noyes.

He also said this is the first time he’s seen a woman kill a child who was not her own or under her care.

“It is highly likely the killing of John Fulton is in some way a substitute for killing her own child.”

Lohrasbe went on to say that there was no enmity towards the boy, hence her actions were caused by psychosis.

“She was preoccupied with satanic, devil and Antichrist, which is significant, as in a large number of psychotics who act violently towards others, it is common, this cosmic struggle between good and evil.”

He referred to a series of books called Left Behind, biblically-based stories about the end of time.

“I don’t know if she ever read them, but this (philosophy) has seeped into many kinds of media and into our culture so when someone is psychotic, they latch onto that theme.”

He said he once consulted on a case of a young man who killed six members of his family in order to save them from the apocalypse.

Most people killed by psychotic individuals are family members or others where the mentally ill person harbours a lot of anger towards the person they are likely to attack.

“So we can conclude, the primary motive was psychosis.”

Asked by Crown counsel Phillip Seagram if Noyes was capable of knowing what she was doing, Lohrasbe said he had no doubt that Noyes intended to kill John Fulton.

“She knew. But there are two aspects that undermine her capacity. With people who are severely psychotic, their capacity to appreciate what they are doing (is impaired.)

“Does someone who doesn’t know that death has a finality, really appreciate what they are doing?” Lohrasbe answered.

“She tried but couldn’t explain a fixed notion of resurrection. She couldn’t see that (John) was dead or if it was part of a sequence. She really tried but could not connect the dots.

“She remained uncertain through the arrest and afterwards. It was some time later when she became fully aware of what she did.”

“Was she able to understand that killing was right or wrong?” Seagram asked.

“Her capacity to know right from wrong was grossly (affected) by her psychosis. There is a massive breakdown of a number of things that influence morality.

“If we can’t keep track of our own history . . . if you are cut off from your education, training, family, children – you lose connections to your morality . . .The world begins and ends within your psychotic symptoms.”

Noyes’s sisters, ex-husband and ex-brother-in-law stated in their interviews with police, Noyes, when not ill, was a kind, gentle, caring person.

“The fact that she had people who cared for her, checking up on her, coming to her house, is testament to that.”

Now that Noyes is stabilized, she is immensely devastated, Lohrasbe said.

“It’s like waking from a bad dream that you’ve done something horrific. And then come to realize that it isn’t a dream. That’s where she’s at. Her moral compass has been destroyed by the disease.”

The fact that she had stopped taking Epival in the two weeks leading up to the murder has no bearing, Lohrasbe felt.

“She described a hopelessness. She felt she wasn’t getting treated for her depression and after awhile, she just shut down. She felt, ‘why discuss it or ask for help?’ Eventually, she had no energy to even verbalize it.”

Despite her realization about the murder, Noyes assured Lohrasbe that she wasn’t suicidal. He said it is quite common for a person who comes out of a psychosis like that and realizes what they did, to commit suicide.

“When they decide to kill themselves, their emotions improve. Some people can’t understand why someone would take their life when they seemed to be getting better. But their emotions improve because it is all coming to a head. They can finally see an end to it.”

Defence lawyer Deanna Gaffar asked, if Bipolar 1 is so common, why in this instance did it turn so violent.

Lohrasbe said he couldn’t answer that but speculated it may be, in North America at least, that we live very segregated lives.

“Everyone has a crazy aunt, but (in many cultures) they are engaged with the rest of the family. People with bipolar who are kept functioning, exchange of affection, helping around the house, making dinner, watching the children – they have duties in everyday life. All this stuff takes up mental space. If there is no one around, they have nothing to do but indulge their delusions.”

The trial continues this week in Rossland.