Speaker 1: Nestled in the heart of British Columbia's Lower Mainland, Coquitlam
Speaker 1: has always been a city call between worlds. Once the
Speaker 1: traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples, this community of
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty thousand has grown from a logging
Speaker 1: and forming settlement into a sprawling suburban haven. For decades,
Speaker 1: families have been drawn here by the promise of quiet neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: good skills, and tree lined streets. Spurway Avenue embodies everything
Speaker 1: that makes Coquitlam so appealing to young families and retirees alike.
Speaker 1: This peaceful residential street winds gently through an established neighborhood,
Speaker 1: flanked by well maintained split level homes from the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies and nineteen eighties. The strait itself curves just enough
Speaker 1: to slow traffic to a crawl, with manicured lawns, carefully
Speaker 1: tended gardens, and driveways where suva sit waiting. It's the
Speaker 1: kind of street where garage doors rumble open at seven
Speaker 1: a m shop, where weekend mornings are filled with the
Speaker 1: distant hum of lawnmower. Most residents have lived here for years,
Speaker 1: watching each other's children grow up, sharing tools and small
Speaker 1: talk about the weather. But on early winter morning in
Speaker 1: January of nineteen eighty three, Spurway Avenue knew would be
Speaker 1: forever changed. At five point thirty a m. The street
Speaker 1: lay shrouded in that peculiar breedawn darkness that seems to
Speaker 1: muffle even the slightest sound. Most of the houses stood
Speaker 1: dark and silent, their occupant step in sleep, still hours
Speaker 1: away from alarm clocks and coffee makers. The only movement
Speaker 1: came from the occasional car on the distant main road.
Speaker 1: In one of those split level homes, a man slept
Speaker 1: peacefully until something jolted him awake. His eyes snapped open
Speaker 1: in the darkness of his bedroom. For a moment, he
Speaker 1: lay still, trying to identify what had disturbed his sleep,
Speaker 1: And then he heard it again, the unmistakable crack of gunshots.
Speaker 1: His heart was racing as he slipped out of bed
Speaker 1: and moved quietly to his bedroom window. Peering through the blinds,
Speaker 1: he looked across to his neighbor's house, a modest, two
Speaker 1: story home, identical the soil many others on spur Away Avenue,
Speaker 1: but something was different. Every light in the house was blazing,
Speaker 1: every single window glowed bright yellow against the pre dawn darkness,
Speaker 1: as if somebody had frantically flipped on every switch in
Speaker 1: the place. And then he saw movement. Through the illuminated windows.
Speaker 1: He could make out the silhouette of a man moving
Speaker 1: quickly through the house. The figure appeared in one window,
Speaker 1: then disappeared, then appeared again in another room. He was
Speaker 1: moving with purpose, urgent, determined movements that suggested he was
Speaker 1: looking for something or someone. The neighbor pressed closer to
Speaker 1: his window, his breath fogging up the glass as he
Speaker 1: tried to make sense of what he was saying. And
Speaker 1: that's when he realized the man wasn't alone. There was
Speaker 1: someone else in that house. Someone the man was pursuing
Speaker 1: through the brightly lit rooms with a relentless predatory intensity.
Speaker 1: The chase was on and on quiet Spurway Avenue. Someone
Speaker 1: was running for their life. In January of nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: the Blackman's were exactly the kind of family you'd expect
Speaker 1: to find in Coquitlam's Ranch Park subdivision. Their split level
Speaker 1: home on Spurway Avenue fit perfectly into the neighborhood's orderly
Speaker 1: rows of suburban houses. Richard Blackman was fifty years old,
Speaker 1: with the calloused hands of someone who'd worked his entire life.
Speaker 1: He'd spent years as a marine engineer before joining the
Speaker 1: Vancouver Fire Department in nineteen seventy eight, where he worked
Speaker 1: on the fireboat. The transition from Pacific towing services to
Speaker 1: public service suited him. He was the kind of man
Speaker 1: who found purpose in health helping others. Bill Jones, the
Speaker 1: Fireman's union president, knew Richard well. He later said, we
Speaker 1: all see him as a very stable guy, competent and
Speaker 1: good inner crisis. That stability showed in everything that Richard did,
Speaker 1: from his reliable work ethic to the way he spent
Speaker 1: his weekends meticulously trimming his lawn and tending his garden.
Speaker 1: His yard was a surpride and joy. His wife, Irene Catherine,
Speaker 1: was forty nine and worked as a pattern's clerk at
Speaker 1: the Vancouver Province newspaper. She'd been there for three years
Speaker 1: and her colleagues adored her. Irene was the kind of
Speaker 1: person who remembered everyone's birthday and always said have a
Speaker 1: nice night before leaving work. She was beautiful as well.
Speaker 1: She'd even been chosen to pose for posters on the
Speaker 1: sides of Pacific Press delivery trucks to the younger staff.
Speaker 1: Iren was like a mother figure, always ready with a
Speaker 1: listening ear or an encouraging word. Together, Richard and Irene
Speaker 1: had raised six children, each finding their own way in
Speaker 1: the world. The eldest was twenty eight year old Roberta
Speaker 1: Lynn Davies, who had married John Davies the previous summer.
Speaker 1: The newly Weeds lived on East eleventh Street and with
Speaker 1: a kind of couple that neighbors loved having a round.
Speaker 1: Luigi Lepacho, who lived near by, couldn't say enough good
Speaker 1: things about them. They were so friendly and nice every
Speaker 1: time I would drop in to see them. They were
Speaker 1: fine people to me. Roberta and John were already talking
Speaker 1: about starting their own family. Then there was twenty five
Speaker 1: year old Karen Dale Rhodes, who was going through a
Speaker 1: rougher patch. Her recent separation had left her living alone
Speaker 1: on Secret Court, but she was handling it with grace.
Speaker 1: Her neighbor Brad, remembered her fondly. Karen was so nice.
Speaker 1: She was also very good looking and had the personality
Speaker 1: to go with her looks. Despite the divorce, Karen seemed
Speaker 1: optimistic about her future. The family's third daughter, twenty six
Speaker 1: year old Kathy Wiley, had moved to quincill and was
Speaker 1: building her own life there. Back home on s Burroway Avenue,
Speaker 1: three of the Blackman children still lived with their parents.
Speaker 1: The youngest was sixteen year old Richard Junior. Everybody called
Speaker 1: them Rick. He was a student at Sir Frederick Barring
Speaker 1: Junior Secondary School, where he made a name for himself
Speaker 1: in sports. Rick had that kind of energy that comes
Speaker 1: with being sixteen and having your whole life ahead of you.
Speaker 1: His friend Christer Riddell would later say he was the
Speaker 1: best am guy in the world. The life of the party.
Speaker 1: Rick had been dating Caroline Waters for a round ten
Speaker 1: months and according to her, he got along with everyone.
Speaker 1: He was just that type of kid. Then there were
Speaker 1: twenty two year old twins Bruce and Barry, who couldn't
Speaker 1: have been more different despite sharing the same birthday. Bruce
Speaker 1: was outgoing and mechanical, spending his time playing soccer or
Speaker 1: working on his car. He had plans to take a
Speaker 1: mill ride's course at Selkirk College in Nelson, a solid
Speaker 1: trade that would set him up for life. His twin Barrie,
Speaker 1: had chosen military service instead, working as a finance clerk
Speaker 1: at Canadian Forces Base Rockliffe and Ottawa. It made sense
Speaker 1: their father had worked in the Canadian Forces more than
Speaker 1: thirty years earlier. The distance between the twins didn't break
Speaker 1: their bond, though. Family's family, and what brought the black
Speaker 1: Men's all together was their love of the outdoors. They
Speaker 1: had a camper that regularly took them to Harrison Hot Springs,
Speaker 1: where they owned a campsite. The wilderness of British Columbia
Speaker 1: was where the family felt most at home. The men
Speaker 1: especially shared a passion for hunting. Richard, Rick, Bruce, and
Speaker 1: Barry when he was visiting, all participated, and they kept
Speaker 1: an impressive collection of rifles locked in the basement. It
Speaker 1: was a hobby that connected generations, father teaching, sons, brothers
Speaker 1: bonding over shared expedition into the woods. This was the
Speaker 1: Blackman family in January of nineteen eighty three, hardworking people
Speaker 1: with strong roots in their community, the kind of family
Speaker 1: that made neighbors think about what they wanted their own
Speaker 1: lives to look like. Stable, loving, secure, But of course,
Speaker 1: no family is perfect. Every household has its tensions, its
Speaker 1: quiet struggles, its moments when the carefully maintained surface threatens
Speaker 1: to crack, but from the outside, the black Men's looked
Speaker 1: like they had it all figured out. Sometimes, though, the
Speaker 1: people who seem to have everything together are the ones
Speaker 1: with the most to loose. Edfield had always been a
Speaker 1: heavy sleeper. His wife used to joke that a freight
Speaker 1: train could run through their bedroom and he wouldn't stir.
Speaker 1: So when that first gun shot pulled him from sleep
Speaker 1: at five point thirty am on the eighteenth of January
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, he knew that some was very wrong.
Speaker 1: He lay for a moment, wondering if he dreamed it.
Speaker 1: The house was quiet, Spurway Avenue was quiet. Everything was
Speaker 1: as it should be in the pre dawn darkness of
Speaker 1: a Tuesday morning in Coquitlam. Then came the second shot.
Speaker 1: Ed sat up in bed, his heart race picking up.
Speaker 1: By the third shot, he was at his bedroom window,
Speaker 1: looking directly across the street at the Blackman House. Every
Speaker 1: single light was on. At five point thirty in the morning,
Speaker 1: every light was blazing. That's when he heard the screaming.
Speaker 1: It was a man's voice, desperate and raw, calling for help.
Speaker 1: The sound carried clearly across the empty street. Ed opened
Speaker 1: up his window and leaned out the january air, biting
Speaker 1: his face. Through the lit windows, he could see two
Speaker 1: figures moving inside the house. One was chasing the other
Speaker 1: through the rooms. Of them running. The chase led them
Speaker 1: to the garage, where Ed watched one man fall to
Speaker 1: his knees on the concrete floor. The garage door was open,
Speaker 1: the overhead lights harsh and unforgiving. Ed later recalled, I
Speaker 1: heard a couple of shouts for help. The guys came back,
Speaker 1: one leading the other, and one guy fell down on
Speaker 1: his knees in the garage. Ed watched as the standing
Speaker 1: figure walked to the workbench and picked something up. Then
Speaker 1: both men disappeared back into the house. Ed ran to
Speaker 1: his kitchen and dialed nine one one. The police arrived quickly,
Speaker 1: their sirens cutting through the quiet neighborhood like knives. Ed
Speaker 1: stood on this front steps, still in his pajamas, watching
Speaker 1: the chaos unfold in his peaceful street. Then the front
Speaker 1: door of the black Man house opened, a man walked out.
Speaker 1: He moved down the front path with the casual pace
Speaker 1: of someone leaving for work, then continued down the hill
Speaker 1: away from the house. There was something unsettling about his composure.
Speaker 1: The way he seemed completely disconnected from what had just happened.
Speaker 1: Ed called out to the approaching officers that that was
Speaker 1: the man he had seen inside the house. The police
Speaker 1: caught up with the man easily. He didn't resist when
Speaker 1: they told him to stop. He simply raised his hands
Speaker 1: and allowed them to cuff him. With the suspect secured,
Speaker 1: officers approached the house, they found a twenty two caliber
Speaker 1: rifle lying on the front lawn. The garage door remained open,
Speaker 1: light still on, revealing two bodies on the concrete floor
Speaker 1: surrounded by blood. Inside the house they found four more.
Speaker 1: Richard Blackman was dead in the kitchen, having been shot
Speaker 1: while doing a crossword puzzle. Forty nine year old Irene
Speaker 1: had been shot dead in the bedroom. Sixteen year old
Speaker 1: Rick was killed with a gunshot blast doundstairs. Twenty eight
Speaker 1: year old Roberta was found dead in the garage, having
Speaker 1: been shot and bludgeoned with a hammer. Her husband John
Speaker 1: was found dead alongside her, shot and bludgeoned, and then
Speaker 1: twenty five year old Karen she too was in the garage.
Speaker 1: Six people an entire family, wiped out in a matter
Speaker 1: of minutes. When officers returned to question the handcuffed man,
Speaker 1: they asked for his identification. The answer would send shockwaves
Speaker 1: through the community and raise questions that would haunt everyone
Speaker 1: who heard the story. It was twenty two year old
Speaker 1: Bruce Blackman, son brother twin, the young man who had
Speaker 1: been planning his future as a mill write, who loved
Speaker 1: soccer and working on cars, who went hunting with his
Speaker 1: father and brothers. The same person who had just destroyed
Speaker 1: his entire family in the quiet suburban house where they
Speaker 1: all lived together. As the sun rose over Spurway Avenue
Speaker 1: that morning, it illuminated a crime scene that would challenge
Speaker 1: everything people thought they knew about family, about mental illness,
Speaker 1: and about how quickly a normal life can turn into
Speaker 1: something unrecognizable. The question everyone would ask was simple but devastating.
Speaker 1: How does this happen? The news spread through Coquitlam like wildfire.
Speaker 1: The black Men family, the quiet people who kept their
Speaker 1: lawn Tiday and send out Christmas cards, had been murdered
Speaker 1: by their own son. For two years, the black Men
Speaker 1: had been the kind of neighbors that everybody appreciated. They
Speaker 1: kept to themselves without being unfriendly. Their yard was well maintained.
Speaker 1: They participated in the small rituals of suburban life that
Speaker 1: make a neighborhood feel ill, safe, and normal. One neighbor
Speaker 1: said to reporters there were no hints of problems in
Speaker 1: the family. They were just a very nice family, and
Speaker 1: they were Richard and Irene maintained close relationships with all
Speaker 1: their children, even the ones who had moved out, came
Speaker 1: home to visit regularly. From the outside, they looked like
Speaker 1: exactly what they were, a tight knit family who genuinely
Speaker 1: enjoyed each other's company. But something had been going wrong
Speaker 1: with Bruce until recently. He had been living in North
Speaker 1: Vancouver with his friend Terry in a one bedroom apartment.
Speaker 1: They'd known each other since high school, but over the
Speaker 1: past few months, Terry had started to worry. The trouble
Speaker 1: had begun in nineteen eighty one when Bruce lost his
Speaker 1: job at a plant that manufactured plastic booms for oil
Speaker 1: spill containment. Being unemployed hit him hard. He felt like
Speaker 1: he was in a rut. Terry remembered Bruce stet out
Speaker 1: of work for a year. Finally, in August of nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two, he found a job as an on call
Speaker 1: garbage collector. It wasn't glamorous work, but it was something,
Speaker 1: and for a while things seemed to stabilize. Then, around
Speaker 1: two months before the Murderspruce started changing. He began reading
Speaker 1: the Bible obsessively, which was strange because he'd never been
Speaker 1: particularly religious. But stranger still was what he claimed to
Speaker 1: find in those pages. Terry recalled, he would see messages,
Speaker 1: subliminal messages in many things. We'd be sitting around watching
Speaker 1: television and he'd see something in a show that he
Speaker 1: thought was a message. Bruce started telling Terry that the
Speaker 1: world was going to end soon and that he had
Speaker 1: some kind of role to play in that ending. The
Speaker 1: conversations became increasingly disturbing, Terry said. Then, about a month
Speaker 1: and a half ago, he told me one night, about
Speaker 1: midnight that if he went to sleep, he knew he
Speaker 1: was going to die. Concern, Terry contacted the crisis center.
Speaker 1: They gave him the name of Jehovah's witness who might
Speaker 1: be able to help. The man came to the apartment,
Speaker 1: but Bruce refused to engage with him. He dismissed the visitor,
Speaker 1: saying he was full of it and didn't know what
Speaker 1: he was talking about. Then, about a month before the murders.
Speaker 1: Terry's concern reached a breaking point. He called Bruce's parents.
Speaker 1: The decision was made quickly. Bruce would move back home
Speaker 1: where his family could keep an eye on him. It
Speaker 1: seemed like the right thing to do. Richard and Irene
Speaker 1: were the kind of parents who would do anything for
Speaker 1: their children. Bruce continued going to his garbage collection job
Speaker 1: after moving home. Then on the tenth of January, just
Speaker 1: eight days before the murders, he suddenly quit. He told
Speaker 1: his boss he was planning to take some college courses.
Speaker 1: He told Terry the same thing, that he was finally
Speaker 1: going to start that mill write program, the plan he'd
Speaker 1: been talking of aut for months. When Bruce came by
Speaker 1: Terry's apartment to pick up some of his belongings, he
Speaker 1: seemed different, better, Terry remembered. He said he was feeling
Speaker 1: much better. He said he was turning his life around,
Speaker 1: and for a brief moment, it looked like Bruce might
Speaker 1: be pulling himself out of whatever dark place he'd been inhabiting.
Speaker 1: He talked about the future, about the courses he would take,
Speaker 1: about building a career as a mill write, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't getting better. The truth was much more frightening. Bruce
Speaker 1: couldn't get better. Whatever was happening in his mind was
Speaker 1: beyond his control, beyond anyone's control. Eight days later, the
Speaker 1: Blackman family would pay the ultimate price for a mental
Speaker 1: health crisis that nobody fully understood. In an era when
Speaker 1: the tools to help somebody like Bruce barely existed, sometimes
Speaker 1: the people who seemed to be turning their lives around
Speaker 1: were actually saying goodbye. After Terry's phone call, Richard and
Speaker 1: Irene knew they needed professional help. They contacted doctor Harvey Brain,
Speaker 1: a Vancouver psychiatrist, and tried to explain what was happening
Speaker 1: to their son. Bruce had been taking drugs heavily. They
Speaker 1: told him, he'd been engaging in bizarre rituals involving body fluids.
Speaker 1: The young man who used to spend weekends working on
Speaker 1: cars and playing soccer was becoming somebody that they didn't recognize.
Speaker 1: When doctor Brain arrived at the family's home, he found
Speaker 1: Bruce in a state of obvious distress. The twenty two
Speaker 1: year old was reading the Book of Revelations, his attention
Speaker 1: completely absorbed by the apocalyptic text. He seemed frightened, paranoid.
Speaker 1: Doctor Brain's diagnosis was swift. Bruce appeared to be in
Speaker 1: a paranoid schizophrenic state. He gave him an injection of
Speaker 1: long acting tranquilizers and left oral medications for ongoing treatment.
Speaker 1: For a while, it seemed to work. A month later,
Speaker 1: Richard reported that Bruce had improved significantly. The family allowed
Speaker 1: themselves to hope that maybe they'd caught this thing in time,
Speaker 1: but their son might be okay. But by mid January,
Speaker 1: Bruce was deteriorating again. He had an appointment scheduled with
Speaker 1: doctor Brain for the sixteenth of January, but he never
Speaker 1: showed up. That same day, his sister Roberta, called the psychiatrist.
Speaker 1: She was worried about her brother. He seemed very confused,
Speaker 1: she said, and she suspected he might have taken marijuana, cocaine,
Speaker 1: and LSDA on top of whatever was already wrong with him.
Speaker 1: Doctor Brain made another house call. Once again, he found
Speaker 1: Bruce reading revelations, but this time Bruce's delusions had become
Speaker 1: more elaborate and more disturbing. He was obset with the
Speaker 1: number seven. He wanted the doctor to call a church
Speaker 1: and find out how many candles were on the altar.
Speaker 1: Bruce then told doctor Brain that he was possessed by
Speaker 1: an all powerful female entity. He said that he was
Speaker 1: lost in time. Most chilling of all, he claimed that
Speaker 1: he was the Antichrist. Doctor Brain's assessment was clear. Bruce
Speaker 1: was in a full psychotic state. He signed commitment papers.
Speaker 1: Bruce needed to be hospitalized immediately, but the family refused.
Speaker 1: They didn't want their son committed to a psychiatric facility.
Speaker 1: Maybe they thought they could handle it themselves. Maybe they
Speaker 1: believed love and family support would be enough. Maybe they
Speaker 1: were afraid of the stigma of what hospitalization might do
Speaker 1: to Bruce's future. Whatever their reasons, they said no. Then
Speaker 1: ours before the murders, Doctor Brain's phone rang once more.
Speaker 1: It was Roberta. She was terrified Bruce had a knife.
Speaker 1: She told him the family had changed their minds and
Speaker 1: they wanted Bruce committed now. They needed help immediately. Doctor
Speaker 1: Brain's advice was simple and urgent. If Bruce had a knife,
Speaker 1: they needed to call the police right away, But by
Speaker 1: then it was already too late. Just two hours later,
Speaker 1: Bruce Blackman was under arrest for murdering his entire family.
Speaker 1: He had killed his parents and his brother Rick first.
Speaker 1: Then he had called his sisters, asking them to come over.
Speaker 1: Roberta arrived with her husband John, walking unknowingly into a
Speaker 1: scene of a massacre. When police found Bruce walking calmly
Speaker 1: down the hill from his house, he was covered in blood.
Speaker 1: He was wearing a makeshift headband that he claimed was
Speaker 1: Jesus's crown of Thorns. His words to the arresting officers
Speaker 1: revealed the complete break from reality that had consumed him.
Speaker 1: I'm saving death. When they die, they become everything, he said.
Speaker 1: He said he needed to see his remaining brother and sister,
Speaker 1: Barry in Ottawa, and Kathy and Quinceil to complete his mission,
Speaker 1: and then, in a voice that officers described as earily detached,
Speaker 1: Bruce Blackman said, I'm possessed by the devil. The six
Speaker 1: bodies were transported to the morgue at the Royal Columbian
Speaker 1: Hospital in Westminster, where coroner Diane Messier would perform the autopsies.
Speaker 1: In her fourteen years on the job, she'd seen plenty
Speaker 1: of death, but she said that this case shook her.
Speaker 1: She recalled, when you go from room to room and
Speaker 1: you continually find bodies, it's really devastating. The autopsy results
Speaker 1: painted a picture of overwhelming violence. Irene had died from
Speaker 1: two gunshot wounds. Richard had died from multiple gunshots. Rick
Speaker 1: had been shot in the head. Karen had been shot twice.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just the shooting that made the case
Speaker 1: so disturbing. Roberta had been shot and then beaten with
Speaker 1: a hammer. Her husband John had suffered the same fate.
Speaker 1: It was the same for Karen. The level of violence
Speaker 1: went far beyond what was necessary to kill. It suggested
Speaker 1: a complete break from reality, a rage that couldn't be
Speaker 1: satisfied by death alone. When detectives interviewed Bruce after his arrest,
Speaker 1: they tried to ask logical questions about what had happened,
Speaker 1: but Bruce wasn't interested in logic. He wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about possession, about the devil, and about being the Antie Christ.
Speaker 1: He told them, I feel so bad about what I've done,
Speaker 1: but I am totally possessed. When they asked erectly if
Speaker 1: he had killed his family, his answer revealed the depth
Speaker 1: of his delusion. I love my family very very much.
Speaker 1: I never killed them. That thing that was in me
Speaker 1: made me do it. Bruce claimed he had been speaking
Speaker 1: to his father, who was worried about him. Then he
Speaker 1: said revelation stuck. Suddenly it came to me, I must
Speaker 1: kill to say the universe, the universe, not the world.
Speaker 1: Who cares about the world. Bruce Blackman was charged with
Speaker 1: six counts of murder in order to undergo a thirty
Speaker 1: day psychiatric examination. Meanwhile, the community was left to grapple
Speaker 1: with a tragedy that seemed to make no sense. On
Speaker 1: the twenty second of January, around sixty people gathered for
Speaker 1: a private funeral service for the Blackman family. It was
Speaker 1: a thirty minute ceremony attended by the only two survived
Speaker 1: having children, Kathy and Barry, who had to bury their
Speaker 1: entire family at once. Reverend James RB of the United
Speaker 1: Church conducted the service. Harold Atchison, the funeral home manager,
Speaker 1: described it as intimate and personal. He said he didn't
Speaker 1: deliver a eulogy, it was more like a family chat.
Speaker 1: He spoke of family love and made the point that
Speaker 1: a funeral didn't have to be the end of everything.
Speaker 1: Six caskets adorned with white, red, and yellow roses sat
Speaker 1: in front of the small gathering. Reverend Herb later reflected
Speaker 1: on the family he'd come to know through the tragedy.
Speaker 1: He said, they are a fantastic family. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: that there's just a tremendous closeness. How many families do
Speaker 1: you know who are close? How many husbands, wives and
Speaker 1: kids are like one. After the service, all six family
Speaker 1: members were cremated at Victory Memorial Park in Surrey. Then,
Speaker 1: on the tenth of February, Bruce Blackman was declared legally
Speaker 1: insane and unfit to stand trial. It was revealed that
Speaker 1: three separate psychiatrists had examined him during his stay in
Speaker 1: the psychiatric hospital, and all of them reached the same conclusion.
Speaker 1: Bruce still believed his family had represented the Antichrist and
Speaker 1: that the killing them had been necessary to save the universe.
Speaker 1: The delusions that had driven him to murder remained intact,
Speaker 1: he told one psychiatrist. I tried to resist the voices.
Speaker 1: I thought it was the voice of God, but the
Speaker 1: devil tricked me. He was ordered hell that the Forensic
Speaker 1: Psychiatric Institution until doctors deemed him competent to stand trial.
Speaker 1: Prosecutor Pedro Decudu was candid about the uncertainty, and he said,
Speaker 1: we don't know how long his treatment will last or
Speaker 1: if he will be brought back to court. I suspect
Speaker 1: he will be brought back to court to face the
Speaker 1: charges in the future, and two months later, Bruce was
Speaker 1: declared fit for trial. When he appeared in court, he
Speaker 1: sobbed openly, prompting his attorney to hand him tissues. He
Speaker 1: waived his preliminary hearing and pleaded not guilty to all
Speaker 1: six murder charges. While psychiatrist had determined he was competent
Speaker 1: to understand the prosadings, his defense would argue that he
Speaker 1: had been legally insane at the time of the murders.
Speaker 1: The trial was initially scheduled for October of nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: but it was pushed back to November. The question that
Speaker 1: would dominate the pre sadings was one that haunted the
Speaker 1: case from the beginning. Can somebody be held responsible for
Speaker 1: actions committed during a complete psychotic break? And if Bruce
Speaker 1: Blackman wasn't responsible for the murders, then who was. On
Speaker 1: the third of November nineteen eighty three, a jury was
Speaker 1: selected and seated in the New Westminster courtroom. What they
Speaker 1: were about to hear would be Unlike most murder trials,
Speaker 1: Justice Lloyd Mackenzie addressed the twelve jurors directly explaining that
Speaker 1: their job would be unusual. They wouldn't need to determine
Speaker 1: if Bruce Blackman had killed his family that wasn't in dispute. Instead,
Speaker 1: they had to decide something much more complex. The judge explained,
Speaker 1: as I understand that there's going to be only one issue.
Speaker 1: That is the question as to whether this accused was
Speaker 1: insane at the time of the offenses with which he
Speaker 1: is charged or alleged to have occurred. He then read
Speaker 1: the legal definition of insanity from section sixteen of the
Speaker 1: Criminal Code of Canada. A person is insane when he
Speaker 1: is in a state of natural imbecility or has disease
Speaker 1: of the mind to an extent that renders him incapable
Speaker 1: of appreciating the nature and quality of an act or omission,
Speaker 1: or of knowing that an act or omission is wrong.
Speaker 1: Bruce sad in the prisoner's stock, clean cut and wearing
Speaker 1: a gray sportsc blue shirt and tie. He looked like
Speaker 1: any other young man facing trial, except for what he
Speaker 1: was accused of doing. In the front row of the
Speaker 1: public gallery, his twin brother, Barry, listened intently as the
Speaker 1: proceedings began. Prosecutor Barry Sullivan outlined the case for the jury,
Speaker 1: Sullivan said that Bruce had believed he was possessed by
Speaker 1: the devil. He had killed his family because he thought
Speaker 1: it would prevent the end of the world. He had
Speaker 1: heard voices telling him to kill. But the prosecution's case
Speaker 1: took an unusual turn. Sullivan explained that Bruce had interpreted
Speaker 1: the six points of the Star of David as representing
Speaker 1: the six members of his family. Bruce was convinced the
Speaker 1: world was going to end, and it could only be
Speaker 1: prevented if his family died so that they could take
Speaker 1: their places at the six points of the star. What
Speaker 1: made the trial extraordinary was what happened next. The defense
Speaker 1: agreed with everything the prosecution said. Both sides were arguing
Speaker 1: the same thing, that Bruce Blackman had been legally insane
Speaker 1: when he committed the murders. The adversarial system that defines
Speaker 1: most trials was set aside. Everybody in that courtroom, from
Speaker 1: the prosecution to the defense, believed that Bruce had been
Speaker 1: too mentally ill to be held responsible for his actions.
Speaker 1: The testimony that followed painted a picture of a young
Speaker 1: man's complete mental breakdown. Terry, Bruce's roommate, described how his
Speaker 1: friend's personality had shifted dramatically around October of nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: Bruce had become severely depressed, then would laugh hysterically at
Speaker 1: things that weren't funny. The change had been sudden, and
Speaker 1: it was frightening. Curtis Rhoades, Bruce's brother in law, testified
Speaker 1: about Bruce's obsession with the Book of Revelations and his
Speaker 1: fixation on the Big Bang theory where two heavens collide.
Speaker 1: Bruce had started wearing a makeshift headband that he called
Speaker 1: the Crown of Thorns Jesus war. In one disturbing incident,
Speaker 1: Curtis recalled, Bruce had blended liquid with two pages from
Speaker 1: the Bible and then ordered his sister Karen to drink it.
Speaker 1: Doctor Harvey Brain took to the stand and explained his
Speaker 1: efforts to help Bruce. He had wanted to commit him
Speaker 1: to a psychiatric facility, but the family had refused. While
Speaker 1: he had the legal authority to force commitment, doctor Brain
Speaker 1: testified he hadn't felt Bruce was a danger to himself
Speaker 1: or others at the time. He seemed highly frightened and excited,
Speaker 1: Doctor Brain said of his patient. Three psychiatrists testified that
Speaker 1: Bruce had been legally insane when he killed his family.
Speaker 1: Doctor Derrick Eves provided crucial context, explaining that Bruce's mental
Speaker 1: illness had roots in his religious studies. About eighteen months
Speaker 1: before the murders, Bruce had started reading Jehovah's witness pamphlets
Speaker 1: and became fixated on the idea that only certain people
Speaker 1: would enter heaven. Bruce had told doctor Eves that he
Speaker 1: felt the devil would prevent him from reaching heaven, but
Speaker 1: that the voice of Jehovah had instructed him to kill
Speaker 1: his family to prevent the end of the world. He
Speaker 1: had been prescribed antipsychotic medication that was working, but he
Speaker 1: had stopped taking it on January sixteenth, just two days
Speaker 1: before the murders. By that point, Bruce had become completely
Speaker 1: consumed by the delusion he needed to deliver his family
Speaker 1: from the Big Bang. He believed that by killing them
Speaker 1: they would become the eternal family of God. The trial
Speaker 1: lasted only a few days. When the jury retired to deliberate,
Speaker 1: they took just forty minutes to reach their verdict. Everybody
Speaker 1: was called back into the courtroom for the announcement. The
Speaker 1: fore man then stood and delivered the unanimous decision, Bruce
Speaker 1: Blackman was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Justice
Speaker 1: Lloyd Mackenzie then addressed Bruce directly. He was commit getting
Speaker 1: him to strict custody at a psychiatric hospital, where he
Speaker 1: would remain until the provincial Cabinet, acting on recommendations from
Speaker 1: a review board, decided he could be released. A special
Speaker 1: committee appointed by the cabinet would review his case annually.
Speaker 1: As the gavel fell, Bruce Blackman's fate was sealed. He
Speaker 1: would spend the foreseeable future in psychiatric care. A young
Speaker 1: man who had destroyed his entire family during a psychotic
Speaker 1: break that nobody had been able to stop. The verdict
Speaker 1: satisfied nobody completely. Justice had been served according to the law,
Speaker 1: but six people were still dead, and the two surviving
Speaker 1: Blackman children were left to rebuild their lives knowing that
Speaker 1: their brother was both the perpetrator and in many ways
Speaker 1: another victim of this tragedy. The verdict sent ripples of
Speaker 1: fear through the community. In the days following Bruce Blackman's
Speaker 1: acquittal by reason of insanity, the Canadian Mental Health Association's
Speaker 1: phones wouldn't stop ringing friends and relatives of people with
Speaker 1: mental illness cult worried that they might become victims of violence,
Speaker 1: but their fears were based on misconceptions that persisted in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three. People with mental illness actually have no
Speaker 1: greater rate of criminal activity than the rest of the population,
Speaker 1: and Bruce Blackman wasn't a typical case of schizophrenia. Doctors explained.
Speaker 1: His psychotic break had descended quickly and violently, a perfect
Speaker 1: storm of untreated illness, drug use, in a family's understandable
Speaker 1: reluctance to institutionalize their son. The Blackmans have been trying
Speaker 1: to help Bruce the only way they knew how, by
Speaker 1: keeping him close by believing that love could be enough.
Speaker 1: They couldn't have known that someone's love isn't enough. Diviided
Speaker 1: disease that transformed somebody into a stranger. Bruce's drug use
Speaker 1: had been a significant factor in triggering his mental breakdown.
Speaker 1: The combination of hallucigens and an underlying vulnerability had created
Speaker 1: a psychosis so severe that Bruce had lost all connection
Speaker 1: to reality. For the next eight years, Bruce remained at
Speaker 1: the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital. He took his medication, he attended
Speaker 1: therapy sessions, He examined in microscopic detail the enormity of
Speaker 1: what he had done to the family he had loved
Speaker 1: during those years. Bruce legally changed his name to Richard
Speaker 1: Bruce James, honoring his father Richard and his brother Rick,
Speaker 1: two of the people he had killed. In August of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, Bruce was granted a conditional discharge. He
Speaker 1: was allowed one or two weekly on super trips outside
Speaker 1: of the hospital. Doctor Derrick Eves, who had testified at
Speaker 1: his trial, supported the decision. He said one can never
Speaker 1: give guarantees, but if it were felt that there was
Speaker 1: a substantial risk, that never would have been approved. Bruce
Speaker 1: had improved tremendously over the years, but not everybody was
Speaker 1: comfortable with the decision. Jack Fraser, a former neighbor of
Speaker 1: the Blackman family, expressed the conflicted feelings that many people had.
Speaker 1: I don't like the business of him being released entirely.
Speaker 1: The woman next door is quite upset about it, but
Speaker 1: I don't think he's going to harm me or my family.
Speaker 1: But Bruce had something crucial the support of his remaining family. Barry,
Speaker 1: his twin brother, had stood by him, helping him integrate
Speaker 1: into society. He understood what the rest of the world
Speaker 1: struggled to accept that the person who had committed those
Speaker 1: murders wasn't really his brother. His brother had been consumed
Speaker 1: by something that had made him off unrecognizable. In nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three, Bruce became practically a freeman. His supervised releases
Speaker 1: increased over time. He hadn't shown symptoms of mental illness
Speaker 1: for years. He found work in a computer related field
Speaker 1: in Victoria and moved into a four bedroom half way house.
Speaker 1: He still had to return to the Forensic Psychiatric Institute,
Speaker 1: but only three or four nights a month. Victoria had
Speaker 1: been chosen because he had family there. As spokesperson Guss
Speaker 1: Richardson explained, reactions were mixed. He said, understandably, some of
Speaker 1: them are upset about the concept of Bruce's release. Others
Speaker 1: had been able to make peace with him. Those who
Speaker 1: knew Bruce during his recovery saw a different person than
Speaker 1: the one who had committed the murders. Judy Shipper, who
Speaker 1: had become a friend, said, Bruce's really bright, intelligent and articulate,
Speaker 1: and he became a very good friend of my family.
Speaker 1: I trusted him with my kids. He played baseball with them.
Speaker 1: Even Curtis Rhodes, Bruce's former brother in law, who had
Speaker 1: witnessed his deterioration first hand, continued to support him. Then,
Speaker 1: in June of nineteen ninety five, a five member review
Speaker 1: board made a unanimous decision Bruce posed no risk to society.
Speaker 1: They also made an important discovery about his original diagnosis.
Speaker 1: Bruce hadn't been suffering from chronic schizophrenia as initially thought. Instead,
Speaker 1: he had experienced a one time drug induced psychosis. This
Speaker 1: revelation reframed everything. Bruce's mental break hadn't been the beginning
Speaker 1: of a lifelong illness. It had been a catastrophic reaction
Speaker 1: to drugs combined with psychological stress. Once the substances left
Speaker 1: his system and he received proper treatment, the person he
Speaker 1: had always been began to emerge again. Bruce credited his
Speaker 1: twin brother, Barry, and his cousin for helping him transition
Speaker 1: and back into the community. When he spoke to the
Speaker 1: review board, his words revealed both his recovery and his
Speaker 1: ongoing struggle to understand what had happened. He said, to
Speaker 1: this day, I can't comprehend it. There were warning signs,
Speaker 1: how it developed to the stage it did. I can't comprehend.
Speaker 1: What I remember is the drinking. I can remember the sequences.
Speaker 1: It should never have happened. The case of Bruce Blackman
Speaker 1: raised uncomfortable questions that society continues to grapple with today.
Speaker 1: How do we balance compassion with public safety? How do
Speaker 1: we distinguish between someone who is dangerous and someone who
Speaker 1: was temporarily consumed by illness? How do we help families
Speaker 1: recognize when love alone isn't enough? For Bruce now Richard
Speaker 1: Bruce James, the answers came through years of treatment, the
Speaker 1: unwavering support of his surviving family, and the gradual recognition
Speaker 1: that the person who had committed those murders with someone
Speaker 1: he himself could barely recognize. The tragedy of the Blackman
Speaker 1: family wasn't just about the six lives loss that January
Speaker 1: morning in nineteen eighty three. It was also about a
Speaker 1: mental health system that wasn't equipped to help, a family
Speaker 1: that did their best with limited understanding, and a young
Speaker 1: man who lost himself so completely that it took over
Speaker 1: a decade to find his way back. Well, that is
Speaker 1: it for this episode of Morbidology. As always, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening, and I'd like to say as if.
Speaker 1: Thank you to my newest supporters up on Patreon, Janine
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Speaker 1: show notes. If you'd like to join, I upload ad
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Speaker 1: over on Apple subscriptions, so feel free to join over
Speaker 1: there if you're interested. Remember to check us out at
Speaker 1: morebidology dot com for more information about this episode and
Speaker 1: to read some true crime articles. Until next time, take
Speaker 1: care of yourself, stay safe, and have an amazing week.