A Toronto woman who threw her four-month-old son into the garbage chute, killing him, in November 2024 has been found not criminally responsible (NCR) due to a mental disorder.
A forensic psychiatrist who assessed Karessa Edwards testified the 30-year-old was psychotic at the time and put her son in the garbage chute in response to command auditory hallucinations.
Sitting in the prisoner’s box wearing a green prison-issued sweatsuit, Edwards listened quietly as her lawyer told Superior Court Justice Jane Kelly his client was pleading not guilty to second-degree murder due to a mental disorder.
Edwards then sat quietly, listening to assistant Crown prosecutor Liz Jackson read out a disturbing agreed statement of facts.
It was Nov. 20, 2024, around 11:25 a.m. when police were called to the multi-storey residential building at 855 Roselawn Ave. by the baby’s father, Sadiki Bacchas.
According to the facts, Bacchas had gone out to run some errands around 8:20 a.m., leaving the baby alone with Edwards in unit 801 where the couple and their baby, Azuri Bacchus, lived.
Around 10:20 a.m., Edwards carried Azuri to the garbage room on the eighth floor and intentionally threw him down the chute to the garbage compactor in the basement of the building.
After throwing Azuri down the garbage chute, Edwards then climbed or jumped down the chute herself, causing abrasions to her arm and back.
Around 10:30 a.m., Bacchas called Edwards to inquire about Azuri.
The baby’s mother advised him that she didn’t know where Azuri was and suggested that perhaps the baby was with her mother, the baby’s grandmother.
Bacchas called the child’s grandmother who advised Azuri was not with her.
At 10:40 a.m., Bacchas arrived back at the Roselawn Avenue apartment and attended the couple’s eighth-floor unit where Edwards continued to claim that she didn’t know where Azuri was but believed he was in the garbage chute.
Bacchus then went down to the garbage room in the basement and located the baby items before calling 911.
When police arrived, Azuri was found without vital signs. The boy was rushed to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
An autopsy revealed the cause of death was either blunt impact injuries sustained from being thrown down the garbage chute, a consequence of compression by the compactor mechanism in the garbage bin, or by blunt impact injuries inflicted before the infant was thrown down the garbage chute.
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The facts state that when Edwards threw her son down the chute, she knew doing so could kill him and that it did cause his death.
Forensic psychiatrist Mark Pearce, who met with Edwards at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in January 2023, testified she suffers from schizophrenia which started around 2020, although some mental health symptoms began appearing in 2015, when she had her first child.
Pearce said Edwards likely demonstrated all the symptoms of schizophrenia including hearing voices, delusions, disorganized thinking and disorganized behaviour.
Pearche explained he came to his conclusions after looking at police body-worn camera from the time of her arrest, medical records from jail and from Sunnybrook Hospital, where she spent a week after the arrest.
Pearche also observed a transcript between Edwards’ mother and the baby’s father from a prior criminal proceeding.
“She’s reported hallucinations, others have seen her talking to herself, she’s reported paranoid delusional beliefs. She’s being monitored. Her thinking was very scattered as seen on police body cam at the time of her arrest, and disorganized behaviour given she was throwing random things out in the weeks leading up to the offence,” the psychiatrist added.
“She said she was hearing voices through the walls for weeks or months. Ultimately, she heard command hallucinations telling her to dispose of the victim, the baby in the garbage chute,” he explained.
Pearce said at the time of her arrest, Edwards had a blank stare on her face. “One officer wrote, ‘I’m not even sure she’s aware what’s going on,’” Pearce told court.
“To paramedics, she reported hearing voices in the walls since moving into the building, I think it was in the summer of that year. On body cam footage, she seemed quite perplexed, moody — which doesn’t mean she was psychotic. She mentioned about gangs and being followed and then she was brought to hospital,” Pearce explained.
Once she arrived in hospital, Pearce said she told doctors had been brought to hospital “based on traumatic experiences” which “you cannot really see.”
She also claimed that “nothing” had occurred that day.
Doctors at Sunnybrook diagnosed her with a primary psychotic illness. “Everyone there thought she was very psychotic as well,” Pearce said.
Pearce said Edwards was also treated by a psychiatrist at Vanier Institute for Women.
He said once prescribed anti-psychotic medication, it helped her symptoms and when she didn’t take them properly, the symptoms reappeared.
The psychiatrist also said that Edwards had likely been suffering from psychotic symptoms dating back to 2022, given she had been involuntarily hospitalized three times.
“She was held in hospital a couple of times but only for a few days, given her age. Her mother had concerns about her behaviour, (and) had obtained a Form 2 compelling an assessment in hospital. As a result, she was put on a Form 1 and was kept in for 72 hours,” Pearce explained.
Hospital officials didn’t think she was an acute risk to others.
“She had a stable childhood, went to college, steady employment before the onset of the illness,” said Pearce, who added her daughter had called 911 about her behaviour.
The psychiatrist concluded at the time she threw Azuri in the garbage chute, Edward’s symptoms were quite severe and she was responding to a command hallucination to hurt a child. “She didn’t know the wrongfulness of her behaviour. I thought she met the threshold for NCR.”
During cross-examination, Edward’s lawyer Christien Levien asked Pearce if he thought postpartum depression played a role in the offence. Pearce said he believed it contributed.
“The stress of being a mother, not sleeping well. That contributed as well. Cannabis likely contributed to some extent as well. Those were the main stressors,” he added.
Sadiki Bacchus sat in court as Jackson read his victim impact statement and a letter he penned to Azuri.
“My son, I only have pictures now … a frozen piece of time to remind me of how it was when you were here and mine. I see your beautiful eyes each time I close mine. How I wish I could change the course of time,” Bacchas wrote.
Before being sent off to begin getting treatment at a psychiatric hospital, Kelly asked Edwards if she had anything to say to the court. Edwards declined.
Kelly’s voice cracked as she told court Azuri was a vulnerable child who could not defend himself.
“You will now be put before the Ontario Review Board who will oversee your future,” said Kelly, who encouraged Edwards to comply with her psychiatric treatment and to take her medication.
