Attempted-murder suspect found not criminally responsible
Harvey woman was suffering from delusions when she tried to kill her neighbours when she torched their home in July 2021
A Harvey woman who torched her neighbours’ home after threatening to kill them by fire just hours earlier was delusional and had a history of serious mental illness, a court heard Monday.
Kim Isabel Cleghorn, 62, of Tweedside Road in Harvey, was scheduled to stand trial in the Court of King’s Bench in Burton on Monday on two counts of attempted murder, and one each of arson and uttering threats, stemming from the events the night of July 10, 2021, into July 21, 2021.
Cleghorn pleaded not guilty to all counts at the outset of the proceedings Monday.
However, defence lawyer Michael Mallory and Crown prosecutor Brian Munn had provided documentation to the judge prior to the scheduled trial, including an agreed statement of facts in which Cleghorn admitted she committed those dangerous acts.
Both sides agreed Cleghorn was suffering from a mental disorder at the time that exempts her from criminal responsibility, meaning she didn’t know what she was doing on the night in question.
Munn, reading the agreed statement on the record, noted that Cleghorn had approached the home of Shannon Moffitt, which was located directly across the street from hers, at about 5:30 p.m. July 10, 2021.
“Upon her arrival at the residence, Ms. Cleghorn stated that she was going to kill Shannon Moffitt and her son and set fire to their home,” the prosecutor said.
“Shannon Moffitt asked Ms. Cleghorn why she was acting this way, to which Ms. Cleghorn responded, ‘you’re just but an Indian, and I don’t deal with people of different races than me.’”
Moffitt reported the encounter to the RCMP at around 6 p.m. that night, but she noted she didn‘t want Cleghorn charged criminally, but rather wanted her to get psychiatric help. However, court heard that officers didn’t respond to the area that evening.
Following through on threat
Munn said Moffatt awoke in her home at about 12:30 a.m. July 11, 2021, to the sound of crackling, and quickly realized the home was on fire.
She woke her son, Zion-Juhmal Moffitt, and they fled the residence, which had no power, the prosecutor said. The mother and son couldn’t get a cell signal to call 911, court heard, but someone else spotted the blaze and called it in shortly thereafter.
Moffitt later told police when she and her son emerged from the house, Cleghorn was nearby and said, “Yeah, I done it. I’m glad I done it. Here I am.”
When the RCMP arrived on the scene at about 2 a.m., Munn said, they saw Cleghorn yelling at NB Power linemen who were disconnecting the Moffitt home due to the fire.
Officers approached her, he said, and one spoke with Cleghorn inside her home. He noted she was talking to her mother, who wasn’t there, court heard, and exhibited other erratic and off behaviour.
Cleghorn was arrested and taken to the RCMP detachment in Oromocto, and her delusional and aggressive behaviour continued, Munn said.
At one point while in custody at the RCMP detachment, Munn said, Cleghorn went for one officer’s sidearm.
“Ms. Cleghorn… reached over and got her hands on Const. Jenkins’ pistol,” he said.
“Her hands were quickly removed from the pistol, and she was returned to her cell.”
She was eventually charged and remanded for a five-day fitness assessment.
Court heard Cleghorn was deemed unfit to stand trial and was referred to the New Brunswick review board, which oversees the cases of defendants found unfit or offenders found to be not responsible for their criminal actions due to mental illness.
Cleghorn was treated and stabilized, Munn said, and she was deemed fit to stand trial in September 2021. She was also released from custody on conditions.
Munn said the investigation revealed Cleghorn has a long history of mental illness. Mallory noted that her doctor reported she suffers from “a significant bipolar disorder” with delusions.
She’s also been diagnosed with schizophrenia, court heard, and officers who encountered her the night of the fire reported her talking to people who weren’t there and going on incoherent rants.
The prosecutor said Cleghorn also reports she has no recollection of the night of July 10-11, 2021.
Exempt from criminal responsibility
A report written by Miramichi psychiatrist Dr. Niaz Khan prepared in March 2022 supported that finding, noting that Cleghorn has been seen for various mental-health issues since 2000.
Khan notes she was admitted to the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital in 2012 with acute psychosis triggered by stress, and he wrote that in the week before the fire, she was brought to the hospital by RCMP officers after she exhibited “bizarre behaviours.”
“In July 2021, she was back in the community and once she arrived at home, she ripped her phone off her wall, went to her neighbours with the phone and threw it in the bonfire,” Khan wrote.
“She believed people were monitoring her thoughts.”
Christie accepted those findings, and ruled that while Cleghorn committed the acts detailed in the charges, her mental state was such that she couldn’t form the requisite intent to be held criminally responsible.
The judge referred her case back to the New Brunswick review board, which is required to hold a disposition hearing within the next 45 days.
Cleghorn remains free in the community, but still subject to a release order, which essentially places her on house arrest save for limited exceptions
She’s also to have no contact with Moffitt or her son, refrain from possessing incendiary devices and follow treatment as directed.
‘I don’t feel safe’
Shannon Moffitt attended Monday’s proceeding with her son, who was 18 years old at the time of the fire, and she said she was disappointed with how the case was resolved.
“I don’t think it’s right,” she said outside the Burton Courthouse. “As a citizen, I don’t feel safe with her being out and about.”
Moffitt said she has post-traumatic stress from the incident.
“I lost two cats in the fire,” she said.
Moffitt was renting the home - which she described as a camp - and it wasn’t insured, she said. She had to move out, but was lucky enough to have someone close to her take her and her son in.
She said she lost her home, but she wouldn’t want to be back in there anyway, as Cleghorn still lives across the road.
As for Cleghorn, she told the Fredericton Independent on Monday she finds the situation confusing, describing the medical diagnoses as “gobbledegook” she doesn’t understand.
She said she feels all right, “as long as I take my meds.”
You can contact Don MacPherson at ftonindependent@gmail.com.
Are there any restrictions or conditions on her, now that she is free again?