Review board denies request to transfer killer

Doctors at Shepody Healing Centre at Dorchester Penitentiary sought to ship Gregory Allan Despres, 42, formerly of Minto, out of province because he’s assaulted, threatened facility staff

A board that oversees the cases of mentally ill offenders has denied a request from psychiatrists at a prison hospital to transfer a violent and difficult killer from Minto to an out-of-province facility.

Gregory Allan Despres, 42, killed Fred Fulton and Veronica (“Verna”) DeCarie in their home on Slope Road in Minto on April 23, 2005, and was found in 2008 to be exempt from criminal responsibility due to a mental disorder at the time of the offences.

U.S. border agents took this photo of Gregory Allan Despres in April 2005 when he crossed into the United States after he had slaughtered his elderly next-door neighbours in Minto. (Photo: Submitted)

He has regularly appeared before the New Brunswick review board for disposition hearings ever since, and it’s heard repeatedly that he’s refused to engage with treatment.

For most of the past 20 years, Despres has been held at the Shepody Healing Centre, a secure hospital at Dorchester Penitentiary, though for a brief period he was sent to the Restigouche Hospital Centre in Campbellton, but it was unable to handle him.