Charley has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in Carl Reinboth’s death and not guilty to aggravated assault and attempted murder in stabbing Guocai Sun at a Somerset Street West gas bar on April 23, 2021.
Honor Charley was in the midst of a psychotic episode when he stabbed two men in Chinatown in 2021, his defence lawyers claimed Friday as they asked a jury to find Charley not criminally responsible for killing Carl Reinboth and stabbing 84-year-old Guocai Sun.
Jurors heard closing arguments Friday from Charley’s lead defence lawyer, Michael Smith, who said his client did not have the intent necessary for the jury to find Charley guilty of murder.
Crown attorney John Semenoff countered by saying there was no evidence during the three-week trial that proved Charley was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the attacks on April 23, 2021.
Charley pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in Reinboth’s death and not guilty to aggravated assault and attempted murder in stabbing Sun later the same morning inside the Petro-Canada gas bar at 676 Somerset St. W.
The two stabbings, about two hours apart that morning, were captured on surveillance video, and Charley was seen on video standing in line at the same Petro-Canada gas station behind both victims shortly before the stabbings.
Reinboth, 64, an outreach worker at the Somerset West Community Health Clinic, was stabbed in the back at 9:40 a.m. as he had walked out of the gas station and stopped briefly on the sidewalk to light a cigarette.
Charley was seen on video stabbing Sun in the neck as he left the same Petro-Canada gas bar at 11:48 a.m., then robbing the cash register while threatening to kill the attendant.
At the outset of his trial on Jan. 6, Charley’s defence lawyers admitted it was Charley who was seen on video committing both stabbings.
Evening Update
“The issue for you is going to be the intent,” Smith told the jury in his closing arguments Friday. “Did he have the intent to kill Carl Reinboth and the intent to attempt to kill Guocai Sun?”
The defence called evidence during the trial from a psychologist who examined Charley two years after the stabbings, and also called members of Charley’s family to testify.
His mother and sister testified they observed increasingly “irrational behaviour” in Charley in early 2021 as he was living on his own in a Bronson Avenue apartment.
“The changes started in January 2021 and, month after month, they got worse, culminating in what happened on April 23,” Smith told the jury.
Smith said Charley’s family had a history of mental illness with his father, paternal uncle and cousin diagnosed with schizophrenia. His older brother suffered from the same illness and began exhibiting the same “changes,” his family testified, around age 19.
Charley was 20 at the time of the stabbings and had received a scholarship offer to play football when “his mind began creating scenarios that didn’t exist,” Smith said.
His mother saw him the day before the stabbings and reported odd and aggressive behaviour. Around that time, Charley had inexplicably stated that he believed celebrities Kim Kardashian and Kevin Hart were posting about him on social media and that the postings had garnered millions of “views.”
“Something (was) definitely wrong with Honor Charley. He is paranoid, he thinks people are out to get him … and he’s scared,” Smith said. “At the time of the stabbing, he hears a voice saying, ‘That’s the guy.’
“When he stabbed (the victims), Mr. Charley’s psychosis was at its highest,” Smith told the jury. “His overall psychotic state brought Honor Charley to do what he did that day.”
The Crown countered Smith’s arguments by asking the jury to “reject outright” the opinions of the psychologist. Semenoff told the jury Charley was “fully aware of what he was doing” during the stabbings “and he did it anyway.”
Smith showed the jury surveillance video from inside the gas station after the first stabbing, where the defence lawyer said Charley was exhibiting “bizarre” behaviour as he went back to the store to look for two lost cellphones.
Semenoff argued that same video was “evidence of somebody who is lucid, who is rational and who is able to retrace his own steps.”
The behaviour wasn’t bizarre, Semenoff said, and there was no indication of Charley exhibiting delusions, hallucinations or paranoia when he returned to the store.
The two phones were eventually found in an adjoining backyard on Cambridge Street. Charley had briefly hidden under a residential porch on Cambridge after he killed Reinboth and ran down the street.
He was next spotted around 11 a.m. at a dog park on the corner of Bronson Avenue and Slater Street. Police were called to the scene after Charley tried to take a woman’s dog.
He was questioned and briefly detained by an Ottawa police officer who found no weapons and let him go.
Semenoff told the jury that a forensic examination of the phones showed Charley had been searching for “stabbing charges” and other related internet searches, starting at 9:05 a.m. on the day of the stabbings.
“When Mr. Charley left his apartment that day, he left with a chef’s knife in his pocket, and he did so armed with the knowledge of the legal consequences of what would happen to him if he stabbed somebody,” Semenoff said.
“That’s the only logical conclusion you can reach with those internet searches within a half-hour of him going out and stabbing Mr. Reinboth.”
Semenoff said Charley’s defence team fell short of proving that Charley was suffering from a mental disorder that rendered him incapable of knowing right from wrong.
Charley used “extreme” force when he stabbed Reinboth in the back and he targeted a lethal area of Sun’s neck, Semenoff said.
“He knew that this would likely kill Mr. Reinboth. He knew that this would likely lead to a life sentence,” Semenoff said. “He did this anyway.”
Superior Court Justice Robert Pelletier is scheduled to deliver legal instructions to the jury on Tuesday, when jurors are then expected to commence deliberations.
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