Judges say Fredericton downloaded disturbing videos of a man facing mass shooting charges

Fredericton – Judges in the Matthew Raymond murder case heard Wednesday that the types of videos the defendants saw online in the year before the 2018 mass shooting took a dark turn.

Lawyer Alex Pate with Raymond’s defense team said the defendant had hundreds of thousands of videos and pictures on his computer hard drive.

The lawyer told the court that the pictures and videos from 2015 and 2016 were mainly video games, mountain biking, animals and family. But since March 2017, videos about the terror group ISIS, about the beheading and about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have started appearing.

In August 2018, Raymond was charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Donnie Robichad, Bobby Lee Wright and Fredericton Police Constables Rob Costello and Sarah Burns.

“The user did not like Justin Trudeau – based on comments I read,” Pate told the judges. He says Raymond believes Trudeau is trying to turn Canada into a Muslim country.

Pate said the files on the computer, which were downloaded after May 2017, referred to monsters and Satan. Pate said he downloaded some videos from a conspiracy website run by a man identified as Rob Lee.

One of the videos shown to the judges from the hard drive was, “How Muslims Attacked Canada”. It was downloaded in May 2017.

Pate said Raymond organized a one-man protest in front of the New Brunswick Legislature in Fredericton in June 2017.

Fredericton showed jurors a video published by blogger Charles LeBlanc, in which he was interviewed wearing a Raymond sandwich board, engraved with the words “No Sharia Law”.

In the video, Raymond complains about a Muslim demand to remove a cross from a church in St. John’s.

“Crowds of them are coming and asking for goods,” Raymond said in the video. “This is what they do in every country they go to.”

When LeBlanc asked him about the source of his news, Raymond responded that it was the “Internet” and that the news media was biased and did not always tell the exact truth.

Raymond’s defense team admitted that their client had killed four victims, but said he should not be held criminally responsible for the mental disorder.

The trial is set to begin on Thursday.

This report of the Canadian Press was first published on October 14, 2020.

Kevin Bissett, The Canadian Press