Psychiatric report says Saskatoon man 'acutely and severely psychotic' when he fatally stabbed partner in 2022

Dan Zakreski · CBC News

· Posted: May 26, 2025 3:11 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

A forensic psychiatrist who assessed accused slayer Thomas Hamp said the 25-year-old "was acutely and severely psychotic" erstwhile helium fatally stabbed his woman Emily Sanche connected Feb. 20, 2022.

"Psychosis was the ascendant origin that drove his violence," Shabehram Lohrasbe wrote successful a 25-page assessment. 

"It is apt that his capableness to "know" that his actions were wrong, successful the existent world, was severely impaired."

Hamp was charged with second-degree execution and is appearing earlier Justice Grant Currie successful a judge-alone proceedings astatine Saskatoon Court of King's Bench.

Defence lawyer Brian Pfefferle is not disputing that Hamp stabbed his partner. The constituent of contention betwixt Pfefferle and authoritative Cory Bliss is whether Hamp is criminally liable for his actions.

Treatment trail

The defence hired Lohrasbe to bash a psychiatric assessment.

Lohrasbe testified that helium met with Hamp doubly successful idiosyncratic and past again by video, for a full of 5 hours. He besides interviewed Hamp's parents and reviewed reports from his objective attraction for obsessive compulsive upset (OCD).

He besides reviewed elaborate notes and substance messages written by Sanche, who was studying for a master's grade successful counselling and expressed concerns astir her partner's deteriorating intelligence wellness successful the twelvemonth earlier helium killed her. Lohrasbe besides reviewed notes instrumentality by Sanche's cousin, Catherine.

The notes included observations Emily made hours earlier her death, aft the mates contacted the Saskatoon Crisis Intervention Service. Hamp was expected to spell to the infirmary the time that helium killed her.

"He seemed highly agitated and upset," she wrote.

• Parents of accused slayer Thomas Hamp attest astatine execution proceedings astir son's decline

Lohrasbe said he's done thousands of assessments implicit his four-decade vocation and that the written records from the 2 young women "are incredibly important documents." He said Emily's substance connection concatenation "is poignant, and truthful adjacent to the offence."

"I've ne'er seen thing similar it."

In his analysis, Lohrasbe said Hamp's worsening OCD symptoms and dense cannabis usage astir surely played a relation successful the psychotic episode, but "their precise imaginable roles cannot beryllium delineated."

Day of the killing

WATCH | Saskatoon antheral who stabbed spouse to decease deemed 'acutely and severely psychotic' by psychiatrist: 

Lohrasbe said Hamp was successful the afloat throes of a psychotic occurrence the time helium killed Emily Sanche.

Hamp believed that the mates were nether constabulary surveillance and that friends and household were pedophiles, Lohrasbe said. He was suspicious of aesculapian professionals, fearing that helium would beryllium castrated if helium went to the hospital.

"In immoderate mode the fearfulness of going to infirmary was intertwined with his fears of the police, surveillance, Tetris, technology, pedophilia, doctors, toxic medications, and the castration," Lohrasbe wrote.

Hamp said helium was obsessed with video crippled Tetris due to the fact that helium believed it was being utilized to trial him and arsenic a spying device.

"The thought of sidesplitting Ms. Sanche and past himself came to him abruptly; 'I thought we some had to dice to debar a worse fate,'" the study said.

"The 'worse fate' that awaited Ms. Sanche was, 'that Emily would beryllium made to breed and past tortured to death.' He believed that Ms. Sanche was a people for 'their breeding due to the fact that she came from a astute family.'"

Lohrasbe concluded that the psychiatric appraisal "would enactment the ineligible information for uncovering Mr. Hamp not criminally responsible."

The proceedings continues each week.