Man accused of random stabbing in Vancouvers Chinatown had been deemed a significant threat by psych

B.C. Premier David Eby says an independent review will study why a man accused of stabbing three people on Sunday in Vancouver's Chinatown had been allowed to leave a psychiatric hospital, when just five months earlier a panel of experts had deemed him a threat to the public.

The accused, 64-year-old Blair Evan Donnelly, has a history of violence. He stabbed his teenage daughter to death in 2006, was found not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder, and was eventually committed to British Columbia's Forensic Psychiatric Hospital.

When a person in B.C. is found not criminally responsible or unfit for trial, decisions about their care, including whether or not they can be released from care, are made by a three-person panel of the British Columbia Review Board.

Mr. Eby told reporters Thursday that he has read an April 13 review board report on Mr. Donnelly. That report, which was leaked to local media, characterizes Mr. Donnelly as a significant threat and recommends that he receive intensive supervision at the hospital. But it also says he can leave for daytime visits and even sleep outside the facility for up to 28 days in a row if the hospital's director of care deems him not a threat to himself or others. Mr. Donnelly had been released from the hospital on a day pass when he allegedly committed Sunday's attack.

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Mr. Eby added that he has many questions, which he said will be answered by former Abbotsford police chief Bob Rich's coming review of the case.

"At the end of the day, the core question of how a violent, psychotic individual was released into the community to attack innocent people is the question that needs to be answered," he said.

The Premier said Mr. Rich's first task will be to find out if there are other people in similar circumstances who may also be out on day passes from the 190-bed hospital, located on the grounds of the former Riverview Asylum in Coquitlam, B.C. This question, he said, is "a necessary one to ask, given the unthinkable happened in this case already."

Mr. Donnelly has been charged with three counts of aggravated assault related to the attack, which took place at the Light Up Chinatown festival. He remains in custody. The three people stabbed, a man and woman in their 60s and a woman in her 20s, were left with severe but non-life-threatening wounds, police told a news conference Monday.

After Mr. Donnelly was arrested in 2006 for killing his daughter, he told authorities that God wanted him to murder her and his wife. He was found not criminally responsible in 2008.

A year later, in 2009, he was given a day pass from the hospital and met up with a former patient from the facility. The two used cocaine together for several hours before Mr. Donnelly stabbed his companion, according to a copy of the review board's April decision, which was posted online by CHEK News on Thursday. Mr. Donnelly was convicted and sentenced to 45 days in prison for that assault, but has remained at the hospital since, according to the document.

In 2017, he was out on another temporary leave when medical staff noticed he was becoming obsessed with religious matters once again and ordered him back to the hospital, the document says. Shortly after returning, he attacked a patient with a butter knife, but was later found not criminally responsible for that assault and received an absolute discharge, according to the document.

In 2021, he was ordered to remain at the hospital during his annual appearance before the board.

In April, the review board panel concluded that Mr. Donnelly still needed "significant supervision to ensure he does not cause further harm to the public," and that he needed to remain at the hospital for at least eight more months.

"Mr. Donnelly presents a high risk of relapse given his pattern of rapid decompensation and violence in the past," one of his psychiatrists told the panel. "The accused has reoffended after long periods of remission between violent episodes and without significant warning signs."

Still, the board decided he could leave the facility temporarily, with the hospital director's permission.

The Provincial Health Services Authority, which oversees care at the hospital, declined several requests for an interview this week, but said in a statement Thursday afternoon that it had initiated its own review of Mr. Donnelly's release and would co-operate fully with "all other investigations."

Mr. Eby said Mr. Rich will also have the opportunity to study why the public didn't have information about the review board's findings until the decision document was leaked to media.

The review board said in an e-mail that it had been giving parties to the April decision until Friday to apply for the document to be withheld from media.