B.C. man who claims he stabbed 3 on ‘God’s will’ isn’t responsible, lawyer says

VANCOUVER – The lawyer for the man accused of an attack at a Vancouver Chinatown festival says his client had no motivation other than a direction from God to stab three people and he should be found not criminally responsible. 

Glen Orris told a B.C. Supreme Court judge in closing arguments that Blair Donnelly’s mental illnesses “rendered him incapable of knowing if his actions were wrong” on Sept. 10, 2023, when two women and a man were injured at the festival.

Donnelly has pleaded not guilty to three counts of aggravated assault and attended court Thursday carrying a bible. 

His trial heard he was on unescorted leave from the B.C. Forensic Psychiatric Hospital on the day of the attack.

Donnelly testified earlier in the trial that he had initially planned to bike to a coffee shop in Coquitlam, but was “prompted by God to go to Chinatown” to harm people.

Orris said Thursday that both Donnelly and a psychiatrist told the court he had been suffering from religious delusions the day of the stabbings.

He was “overwhelmed and convinced by the belief that God wanted him to stab people,” Orris said. 

“Mr. Donnelly’s psychotic illness rendered him incapable of making morally, grounded and rational decisions when he engaged in unprovoked attacks on innocent victims,” he said. 

Donnelly has admitted to the crimes, but Orris said his state of mind at the time is the issue before the court.

His actions were “compelled by his belief that he required to carry out God’s instructions, will, suggestions, whatever you want to call it,” he said. 

Orris said evidence presented at the trial has shown his client believed that what he was doing was contrary to his beliefs and character but was “not wrong in a moral sense as they were compelled and sanctioned by God.”

The court heard that Donnelly has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and that the psychiatrist who testified earlier this week had more recently diagnosed him with “schizoaffective disorder bipolar type,” which manifests as religious delusions. 

Donnelly had previously been found not criminally responsible for stabbing his daughter to death in 2006, and for a 2017 attack on another psychiatric patient with a butter knife.

The Crown presented its case on the first day of the trial, sharing surveillance video showing Donnelly’s movements the day of the attack, including buying a chisel from Home Depot, travelling to Chinatown and stabbing the victims.

Crown counsel Mark Myhre is also expected to deliver his closing arguments Thursday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2025.