Thomas Hamp murder trial in Saskatoon delayed until May

Article content

The continuation of a Saskatoon murder trial has been adjourned until next year due to a delay in receiving an expert medical report.

Thomas Hamp’s second-degree murder trial began in September at Court of King’s Bench. It was adjourned until Dec. 17 to 19 to give a forensic psychiatrist time to review letters Hamp sent from jail — which Hamp’s lawyer says were not disclosed to the defence — before including them in his expert report.

Article content

“As the defence for Thomas Hamp had not received a report from their proposed expert, nor provided it to the Crown, they sought an adjournment of the trial which was granted by the Court. The defence also waived Charter delay in the circumstances,” Crown prosecutor Cory Bliss confirmed on Tuesday.

He said the earliest available dates for all parties to conclude the judge-alone trial are May 26 to 30, 2025.

Hamp, 28, admits stabbing his girlfriend, 25-year-old Emily Sanche, in the chest in her Greystone Heights condo on Feb. 20, 2022.

The defence is arguing that he should be found not criminally responsible because he was suffering from a mental disorder at the time that made him incapable of appreciating the wrongfulness of his act.

Hamp, who also stabbed himself, testified that he killed Sanche to save her from “a much worse death.” He told court that for months, he was having delusions that a childhood friend was colluding with secret police to frame him as a pedophile and take him and Sanche away to be tortured and killed.

Court heard he had been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, and had been off and on his medication in the months leading up to Sanche’s death. Hamp said he went off his meds — against his doctor’s order — because he thought the medication was trying to brainwash him.

Article content

Article content

He also said Sanche was worried that his heavy cannabis use might be contributing to his delusions, intrusive thoughts and false memories, so he quit smoking it two days before the stabbing.

“Emily had been worried about me for months by the time my condition got really bad, and she was asking me to go to the hospital and quit smoking weed long before I did,” Hamp wrote in a letter to Sanche’s parents.

“I did not believe it at the time, but I now think this paranoia and ensuing psychosis were caused by the weed I was smoking. Needless to say, I have quit for good,” he wrote in another letter to Sanche’s cousin and best friend.

Hamp sent his first set of apology letters from custody a month after the stabbing, in March 2022, but they were intercepted by police. Another set of letters were re-sent to his parents, who gave them to police once they realized their relevance, Pfefferle said.

Witnesses testified, and Hamp wrote in his letters, that Sanche was working with Hamp’s parents to get him help and convince him to go to a hospital. Court heard neither Sanche nor Hamp’s parents wanted to call authorities because they worried it would escalate his behaviour.

Article content

Hamp said he started refusing to go to hospital because he thought doctors would turn him over to the secret police.

The Saskatoon Star Phoenix has created an Afternoon Headlines newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox so you are up to date with the most vital news of the day. Click here to subscribe.

With some online platforms blocking access to the journalism upon which you depend, our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark thestarphoenix.com and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. Click here to subscribe.

Article content