The man who was charged with 1st degree murder in the death of an Owen Sound woman 2 and a half years ago, has been declared “not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.”
30 year old David Small of no fixed address, entered the plea on Monday, July 31st in Superior Court and it was accepted by the Crown.
Only a small group of accused, actually raise the issue of mental illness and even fewer meet the legal threshold in Canada.
Under the criminal code, while an accused found not criminally responsible by a court is not convicted in the usual sense, he is also not acquitted.
Rather, the accused is found to have committed the crime but because of the mental disorder, is not responsible in the same way other offenders are.
Small was charged with murder in the death of 28 year old Lezleigh Hopkins on January 22nd of 2015.
Her body was discovered in one of seven apartments in a home on 2nd Avenue West, just down from the Owen Sound police station.
Small was arrested some three weeks after her body was found.
It was the first murder in Owen Sound in roughly 3 years.