Is he a reliable expert on the issue of mentally ill criminals or a professionally irresponsible huckster keen to boost his public profile?
Those were the competing pictures provided to a judge Monday of a forensic psychiatrist defence lawyers have called to testify in support of their bid to find Jeremy Skibicki not criminally responsible in the killings of four women.
Before U.K. forensic psychiatrist Dr. Sohom Das could be allowed to testify, King’s Bench Justice Glenn Joyal, who is presiding over the judge-alone trial, had to qualify him as an expert.
Defence lawyer Leonard Tailleur spent more than an hour reviewing Das’s professional history, his role as a lead psychiatrist with the National Health Service, and experience assessing the mental fitness of criminal offenders.
A Psych For Sore Minds / YouTube
Dr. Sohom Das in a video from his YouTube channel.
It was Das’s sideline as a YouTube host, whose “tongue in cheek” videos included flippant discussions of how to fake mental illness and what not to do if you are arrested for murder that attracted the hottest grilling by prosecutors.
“If you are going to commit a murder, one of the stupidest things you can do is to confess it to somebody else,” Das said on a 2022 video snippet played for court and taken from his YouTube channel ‘A Psych for Sore Minds.’
Das goes on to discuss a relevant case from the U.K. before concluding: “Absolutely do not kill anybody. But if you do, don’t tell anybody.”
Das said the comments were meant to be a joke.
“So you actually advised people in a YouTube video not to confess if they have killed somebody?” Crown attorney Chris Vanderhooft put to Das.
“Absolutely do not kill anybody. But if you do, don’t tell anybody.”–Dr. Sohom Das
“I agree that’s what my video says, but I wouldn’t say that to a real person in real life,” Das replied.
In another video, Das outlined several ways to spot someone faking mental illness.
“I just realized I’ve given away the cheat notes for faking mental illness,” Das said in the video. “Oh well.”
Exposing ways to fake mental illness “is an unusual thing for a forensic psychiatrist to do, wouldn’t you agree?” Vanderhooft said.
“It is tongue in cheek and done for educational purposes,” Das said.
Vanderhooft charged that criminals could be watching Das’s video and learning how to fool psychiatric examiners.
“People who have killed people could watch YouTube and realize how it is they should fake mental illness,” he said.
“Yeah,” Das replied.
“If you Google ‘faking mental illness, your YouTube channel and your videos come up pretty quickly, don’t they,” Vanderhooft asked Das.
“I don’t know that,” Das said.
In another video profiling the case of U.S. serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, Das repeated his name in rhyme for comedic effect and made repeated comic reference to necrophilia.
Vanderhooft accused Das of using his YouTube channel and videos profiling famous serial killers and celebrity cases to “drum up” business as a commentator.
“No, I am usually approached by my media agent to appear on television shows, it’s not usually through my YouTube channel,” Das said.
Das agreed his role as a trial witness is to provide unbiased testimony, but in a video excerpt played in court, cast a skeptical eye on that goal.
“Every psychiatric expert in every criminal case should be 100 per cent objective and neutral … and help the court understand the scientific areas of their expertise,” he said. “But there are cowboy experts, because they get money, they get fame, they get attention … they know they will get more cases if they lean a certain way.”
“This is a case where we have a witness who in my view can be seen to have conducted himself in a way that brings into question his professionalism.”–King’s Bench Justice Glenn Joyal
In the end, Joyal agreed to qualify Das as an expert in forensic psychiatry, while at the same time expressing serious concerns about his professionalism, noting his YouTube antics might preclude him from practising as a psychiatrist, were he working in Canada.
“This is a case where we have a witness who in my view can be seen to have conducted himself in a way that brings into question his professionalism,” Joyal said. “One can further say that his conduct is self promotional and potentially compromising of his credibility.
“It’s a different question whether he can and should be qualified to give expert testimony the defence seeks in this case,” he said. “It goes to the question of weight, rather than the admissibility of his testimony … It is my view that the witness hasn’t behaved in a professional way … however, that alone does not and should not in this case preempt his testimony.”
Skibicki, 37, has pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in the May 2022 slayings of three Indigenous women — Rebecca Contois, Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran — as well as a fourth still-unidentified woman police believe was slain in March 2022 who has been given the name Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe (Buffalo Woman) by Indigenous elders.
Skibicki has admitted to killing the women but is arguing he should be found not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder. In a police interview video recorded after his May 17, 2022 arrest, Skibicki admitted strangling or drowning the victims in his McKay Avenue apartment and then disposing of their remains in nearby garbage bins. Skibicki said he dismembered Contois and Myran in the bathtub with a combat knife.
He told police he had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder and that he had been consuming meth prior to killing three of the women.
The trial resumes Tuesday.
dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca
Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter
Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.
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