10 years since Brentwood stabbing claimed 5 lives

Anniversary of the Brentwood stabbings It's been 10 years since five young Calgarians were stabbed to death inside a home in Brentwood. Mason DePatie reports.

Monday marks 10 years since the killing of five university friends shook the city of Calgary.

In the early morning hours of April 15, 2014, Kaiti Perras, Lawrence Hong, Jordan Segura, Zackariah Rathwell and Josh Hunter were killed at a party celebrating the end of the school year.

They were stabbed by Matthew de Grood, who had been living with undiagnosed schizophrenia at the time, and was ultimately found not criminally responsible.

De Grood has since been receiving psychiatric care.

In 2023, he was moved from a group home in Edmonton and his treatment is now being followed by the Southern Alberta Forensic District at a Calgary group home.

"The name and whereabouts of where Mr. de Grood is currently living is not being disclosed," his lawyer Jacqueline Petri told CTV News.

"As part of the 2022 hearing, the Review Board ordered these details not be referenced, along with those pertaining to his parents’ residence, as a result of issues related to social media threats toward Mr. de Grood and his parents."

The courts have denied a full discharge from the group home he's been living at several times.

Petrie would not comment about de Grood's privileges, but said the review board "agreed he is a model patient."

"His schizophrenia has been reported in full remission since coming under the Board’s jurisdiction. I will add that due to medication changes initiated by Mr. de Grood’s Edmonton psychiatrist in 2019 and again in 2021 aimed at eliminating a medication he had been taking for years, resulted in Mr. de Grood experiencing mild and brief symptoms in both those years."

During the 2023 hearing, a consulting forensic psychiatrist indicated that the episodes were not necessarily illness, but a symptom of withdrawal as he was shifted between medications.

"According to the medical experts, other than these two brief episodes, Mr. de Grood has not had any significant signs of illness for close to a decade and only one serious psychotic episode, which tragically was his index offence in 2014," Petrie said.