Man found guilty of murdering Halifax optician in December 2021

A Nova Scotia man has been found guilty of killing a Halifax optician in 2021.

A man has been found guilty of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of a Halifax optician in December 2021.

Cymon Felix Cormier’s judge-alone trial began last fall. Justice Christa Brothers delivered the guilty verdict Thursday morning, telling the court she found the “frenzied attack” on 55-year-old Tony Nader was planned and deliberate.

She did not accept the defence’s argument that Cormier was not criminally responsible.

Nader was stabbed while at his workplace, Insight Optometry, on Brunswick Street the morning of Dec. 30, 2021.

“On the day that Mr. Nader died, Cymon Cormier early in the morning went to Insight Optometry and he brought with him a knife in a backpack,” Scott Morrison, the Crown prosecutor, told reporters outside the courtroom.

“He waited outside of Insight Optometry – they were under COVID protocols at the time – and when the door was opened at the right moment he ran into Insight Optometry and stabbed Tony Nader multiple times.”

Nader had been helping a customer at the time and that man tried to intervene. Cormier then attacked him, striking him in the head with the butt-end of the knife. The man sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

Nader died in hospital from his stab wounds.

Cormier was arrested a short time later and charged with first-degree murder in Nader’s death. He was also charged with aggravated assault for injuring the man who intervened.

Cormier was found guilty Thursday of the lesser charge of assault causing bodily harm for attacking the customer.

During his trial, the defence argued Cormier was not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder. Expert witnesses agreed Cormier was mentally ill but disagreed on whether he was criminally responsible.

“The key question in this was whether or not he was capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong,” said Morrison. “And when you look at the evidence as a whole, the judge did accept that, despite the fact he experiences some mental illness, he does understand, or did at the time understand the difference between right and wrong.”

As for a possible motive, Morrison said there was a family connection between Nader and Cormier.

“He suggested that there may have been some measure of abuse,” explained Morrison. “At this point, nobody knows whether or not there was any form of abuse. Certainly, there was none that was emerging at trial. So, the motivation for Mr. Cormier appeared to be the belief that he had been abused.”

The first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

“I think my client’s also still processing what’s happened today and we’ll be talking about it further,” his defence lawyer, Joshua Nodelman, told reporters.

“I think generally the family is happy with the result,” said Morrison. “It’s obvious that this has had a profound impact on their life and that Tony Nader was a much-loved individual. I think for some people it might bring them a measure of closure.”

Cormier will be formally sentenced in July.

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