A sketch of Matthew de Grood, appearing in a Calgary court on Tuesday April 22, 2014, by artist Janice Fletcher, is shown. A man accused of stabbing five young people to death at a house party is to undergo a psychiatric assessment to determine whether he can be found criminally responsible if convicted.Janice Fletcher/The Canadian Press
A Calgary judge heard testimony from the first of 13 Crown witnesses to the city's worst mass murder as a preliminary inquiry began to determine if the 23-year-old suspect in the case will face a trial.
Friends and family of the five young victims who were stabbed to death at a house party in Calgary's Brentwood district last April packed the courtroom on Monday. Many struggled to hold back tears as the hearing got under way.
Matthew de Grood, who faces five counts of first-degree murder, watched the proceedings attentively from the prisoner's box. He was dressed in a black suit with a blue shirt and his hair was closely cropped. His parents, Doug and Susan de Grood, were in the gallery.
The inquiry is expected to continue through Friday, after which the judge will rule on whether there is enough evidence for the suspect to face trial. A publication ban prevents media from reporting the evidence presented at the hearing.
The victims' families face an emotional week of testimony from police and civilian witnesses, said Neil Wiberg, the Crown prosecutor in the case.
"They're very upset, obviously. Five outstanding young people were murdered, and I'm sure this brings back horrible memories," Mr. Wiberg told reporters.
The crime was one of the country's most gruesome mass attacks, allegedly carried out by a young man who by all accounts had previously shown no tendencies toward violence. He had been preparing to start law school last fall.
The victims – Jordan Segura, 22; Kaiti Perras, 23; Josh Hunter, 23; Zackariah Rathwell, 21; and Lawrence Hong, 27 – were at an end-of-school celebration at a rented house near the University of Calgary when, according to police, the suspect grabbed a knife and attacked party-goers before fleeing.
Last summer, Mr. de Grood, whose father is a senior Calgary police official, underwent psychiatric assessments to determine if he could be deemed criminally responsible for the attacks. The reports by the doctors are evidence in the case and have also been sealed.
Despite a large body of evidence against Mr. de Grood, much of which is not in dispute, it's still important to proceed with the preliminary inquiry, said Allan Fay, the suspect's lawyer.
"This is an extremely serious matter and there's a lot of evidence that is very important to explore," Mr. Fay said. "We know what it looks like on paper, but these cases never look in court like they look on paper so it's important to go through this, both from the Crown's perspective and from mine."
Jeffrey Jones