B.C. man who beat 71-year-old mother to death found not criminally responsible

A home where a woman was found dead in Richmond is behind police tape on Sunday, April 28, 2024. (CTV News)

A Richmond, B.C., man who beat his 71-year-old mother to death in the family home has been found not criminally responsible for her death due to a mental disorder.

Alvin Yiu-Kwong Lee was arrested and charged with the second-degree murder of his mother, Flora Tsang, in April 2024.

Lee, a former Canada Post worker, was 39 years old and shared a suburban home with his parents on Princeton Avenue when the killing occurred.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice John Walker, in his April 10 ruling, found Lee was “incapable of knowing that his acts were morally wrong” when he attacked his mother, due to acute psychosis.

Police broke through the front door of the family home on April 26, 2024, finding blood streaked across the floors and walls, and furniture piled in a hallway.

According to an agreed statement of facts, the attending officers heard Lee’s voice coming from behind a closed bedroom door. One officer kicked down the door to find Lee seated at a computer desk—apparently surprised but otherwise unconcerned by the police presence.

“Mr. Lee stood up and walked towards the officers with his hands raised,” according to the court’s summary of the arrest. “Mr. Lee was taken to the ground and handcuffed.”

Police seized Lee’s cellphone from the bedroom, where they also found a locked metal box containing a .32-calibre revolver, the court heard.

“After Mr. Lee was taken into custody, the police searched for Ms. Tsang,” the judge wrote in his decision. “They looked throughout the residence but were not able to locate her. Officers then called Ms. Tsang’s cellphone, and it rang from beneath the pile of furniture and other items that were blocking the hallway.”

A police dog was called in to search the pile, where Tsang was ultimately found under an overturned sofa and some metal shelving.

An autopsy found the 71-year-old woman died of multiple blunt-force injuries and lacerations that had caused extensive bleeding.

Lee was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2008 and had stopped taking his prescribed medication in 2022. He suffered delusions and had a history of verbal and physical aggression, particularly directed at his mother.

“Mr. Lee’s psychosis rendered him unable to realize that he was simply attacking a parental figure,” the judge reasoned in finding Lee not criminally responsible for his actions.

“Mr. Lee’s illness deprived him of the ability to rationally appraise his relationship with his mother, the reality-based circumstances of his conflict with her, and other options available to him.”

Lee was ordered into the custody of the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam.