Alberta judge calls for changes after man kills wife days after leaving mental health centre | CBC News

WARNING: This story contains discussions of suicide. 

An Alberta judge is making 14 recommendations for RCMP and the provincial government after scrutinizing the case of a young mother who was killed by her husband, less than two weeks after he was discharged from a mental health centre. 

Brett Fenton stabbed and strangled his wife, Jesslyn Fenton, 25, to death on Nov. 2, 2018, in their Galahad, Alta., home, about 150 kilometres east of Red Deer. 

Originally charged with first-degree murder, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison in 2020.

Justice William Andreassen with the Alberta Court of Justice concluded in a fatality inquiry report publicly released Thursday that more robust discharge policies, mandatory training for police and recruiting psychiatrists who live in the communities where they work could prevent similar deaths. 

According to the report, Fenton grew up in Grande Prairie, worked for a grain handling company and had “a significant mental health history.”

He told therapists and psychiatrists that his adoptive parents emotionally and physically abused him, he was incontinent until he was about 12 and he wore diapers into his elementary school years and during his teens. He also told the professionals that wearing diapers calmed and sexually aroused him. 

The couple met in their early 20s and got married in 2015.

On Aug. 26, 2017, Fenton told his social worker, whom the couple had been seeing for therapy, he had had suicidal thoughts. 

The social worker encouraged him to go to the hospital in Grande Prairie. She called the hospital and told nursing staff his diaper fetish was causing great anxiety and that he had talked about suicide.

Fenton told a psychiatrist at the hospital the next day that he had anger problems, financial instability, wore diapers to calm himself, and was upset that his wife had been paying less attention to him since their daughter was born and treating his fetish as a nuisance.

The psychiatrist prescribed an anti-psychotic drug and referred him to another psychiatrist, who followed up with him in October and November that fall and changed his prescription to an anti-depressant.

Since their social worker had reduced her private practice, the couple, together and individually, discussed Fenton’s diaper-wearing with a psychologist between December 2017 and July 2018.

Fenton disclosed to her that he had contemplated suicide on June 10, 2018, and was worried he might feel an urge again to harm himself or his family. 

The couple took a break from seeing the private psychologist in July 2018 because of financial constraints, the report said.

Fenton told the psychologist over email that his wife wanted him to leave her alone when he was wearing diapers and that he feared he might lose his temper, be suicidal again or “hurt my girls in one way or another.”

Near the end of that month, Fenton told the psychologist’s office that the family was moving to central Alberta for work.

The psychologist urged him to return to treatment, find a new therapist and offered phone sessions in the meantime but the couple did not have sessions with her again. 

Centennial Centre hospitalization

On Oct. 10, 2018, Fenton told a crisis line by text that he was thinking about suicide and about first killing his wife and baby to spare them from the anguish of dealing with his death. 

A crisis responder called RCMP and Fenton told police about his suicidal and homicidal thoughts. He was hospitalized at the Centennial Centre for Mental Health and Brain Injury in Ponoka later that day.

A doctor at the centre ordered that Fenton stay in a locked unit, be given sleep or anxiety medication if he needed it, and be checked every 15 minutes. 

The report says, although some of the professionals who treated Fenton at the centre recognized the significance of his diaper fetish, his treatment team didn’t have records from his private therapists and tried to break his diaper-wearing habit by retraining his bladder.

One psychiatrist, who was based in British Columbia but working in central Alberta as a locum and met with Fenton daily during the week of Oct. 15, didn’t believe he posed an imminent risk of hurting his wife or their baby.

Another psychiatrist, who was also a locum from B.C. and met with him on Oct. 22, came to a similar conclusion and decided he should be discharged.

Fenton had told that psychiatrist he had dreamed of killing his family and then told a crisis line about his “dream plans.” 

Justice Andreassen wrote in his report that one locum overlooked information provided by police or downplayed its importance and the one who discharged him understood his homicidal thoughts were a one-off dream.

The diaper issue, the judge wrote, was not resolved during his hospitalization and was almost certain to continue to put a strain on his marriage.

“It is obvious in hindsight that there would be increased risk to both Brett and Jesslyn if these stresses overwhelmed him on his return home and the efforts to get Brett out of diapers were unlikely to be effective after he was discharged,” he said.

Andreassen also wrote that the locum who ordered the discharge appears to have thought public mental health therapy was readily available and would be easily accessible. 

Fenton had an appointment scheduled at the nearest mental health clinic, in Stettler, about an hour’s drive from his acreage, for Nov. 5, 2018.

14 recommendations

Andreassen recommends all RCMP recruits complete a course on violence in relationships and be aware that they could apply for an emergency protection order under the Protection Against Family Violence Act without a victim’s consent.

Cpl. Troy Savinkoff said Alberta RCMP are aware of the judge’s report and are considering the recommendations. 

The rest of the judge’s recommendations affect Recovery Alberta, the provincial agency responsible for mental health and addiction services.

The judge urges the province to recruit full-time psychiatrists to live in central Alberta and work at the Centennial Centre. There should also be a policy to follow up with patients’ previous private therapists, he said.

Half of the 14 recommendations relate to procedures for discharging patients, with the judge saying there should be mandatory measures to protect people at risk of murder-suicide.

“There is a far greater risk to discharged patients themselves and those around them, when a patient will return home without a therapist, let alone a therapist with whom they have built some rapport and who they trust and will contact if their condition deteriorates,” he wrote.

Jessica Conlin, communications lead for Recovery Alberta, sent CBC a statement from the agency. 

Recovery Alberta and its partners are reviewing the recommendations and will consider changes across care teams to prevent similar tragedies, the statement said. 

The statement said Recovery Alberta reviewed the incident internally and that additional training and the implementation of AHS’s digital filing system “have improved the sharing of patient information between care teams.”

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