Judge acquits man accused of murder

WINNIPEG — A judge has acquitted a man of second-degree murder, ruling police who interrogated him ignored evidence he lived with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and was intellectually vulnerable.

Jonathan Michael Gladue, 25, stood trial last week in the August 2023 killing of 50-year-old George Nickolas Demos.

Demos was found stabbed in the lane behind the 200 block of Furby Street, the victim of an alleged robbery. He was rushed to hospital where he later died.

Gladue was one of three suspects arrested in the killing. Co-accused Nehemiah Jarren Fehr, 22 at the time of his arrest, has since died. A then-17-year-old male accused who admitted to stabbing Demos is awaiting sentencing.

Court of King’s Bench Justice Herbert Rempel acquitted Gladue on March 28, ruling he could not find Gladue’s statement to two police detectives was voluntary, making it inadmissible at trial.

“The evidence before me was that the two detectives were completely indifferent to the mental status and lack of sophistication of the accused, who they clearly knew was in a vulnerable state,” Rempel wrote in written reasons for the decision released Thursday.

“I am satisfied they failed to turn their attention to plainly evident cognitive delays and obvious signs of emotional instability displayed by the accused.”

Court heard police arrested Gladue after finding him asleep and smelling of alcohol in a hospital emergency room, where he had been rushed by ambulance suffering a head injury from an assault.

“The fact that the accused was ‘medically cleared’ by the medical staff at the hospital should not have been interpreted by the police to mean that the accused was given a clean bill of health prior to his arrest,” Rempel said.

A police interview video showed Gladue to be in “rough shape” and clearly hungover, Rempel said. Gladue asked police for water but did not receive any until nearly two hours later, five hours after he was arrested.

Investigators knew Gladue was a vulnerable person living with FASD who had just been discharged from the hospital complaining of a head injury and hazy memory, Rempel said.

A doctor with FASD expertise who interviewed Gladue testified that he tested in the lowest range for problem-solving and consequential thinking. A review of the police video interview showed Gladue demonstrated difficulty understanding what he was being told and comprehending he had been charged with murder, the doctor testified.

The interview video showed the two detectives screaming at Gladue, gesturing aggressively and applying “the maximum amount of psychological pressure and intimidation they could think of,” Rempel said.

“I have no doubt these factors brought this particular accused to the point where it was not reasonable to conclude he still had an operating mind that would enable him to exercise or act on his right to remain silent,” Rempel said.

An eagerness to please is common among people with FASD and can lead them to say things the other person wants to hear rather than what the person with FASD remembers, the doctor told court.

“I am satisfied that what the detectives considered deflection or distraction by Mr. Gladue was not an act or theatrical performance,” Rempel said. “It was a genuine effort by Mr. Gladue to try and please the detectives and offer details that did not come from his active memory, but rather from his imagination.”

» Winnipeg Free Press