Child-killing described as 'altruistic homicide'

Guy Turcotte, right, leaves the courtroom during a recess in his murder trial at the courthouse in Saint Jerome, Que., Sept. 28, 2015. (Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Dr. Louis Morissette used the term "altruistic homicide" to describe the fact that Guy Turcotte killed his two children.

The psychiatrist is in his second day of cross-examination at the hands of Crown prosecutor René Verret.

Morissette said that Turcotte wanted to prevent them suffering by finding his body after he committed suicide.

The third psychiatric expert testifying for the defence said this faulty logic is the result of a severely disturbed mind.

A previous defence psychiatrist, Dominique Bourget, had testified that Turcotte was in the midst of an adjustment disorder and was suicidal on the evening of February 20, 2009, which is why Turcotte drank methanol-laced windshield washer fluid.

Verret criticized Morissette -- as he had done for Bourget -- for minimizing the role of methanol in Turcotte's actions.

In his analysis, Morissette wrote that the adjustment disorder along with the suicidal crisis was "essentially the cause of the deaths of the children."

Turcotte is charged with the first-degree murders of his children Olivier and Anne-Sophie. He has admitted to killing his children, but his defence is that he was not mentally capable of understanding the consequences of his actions.

With a file from The Canadian Press