Accused's obsessions, compulsions heightened in years before Muslim family killings, psychiatrist testifies

Warning: This story contains distressing details.

Nathaniel Veltman, accused in the 2021 killings of a Muslim family in London, suffers from a complex web of personality and developmental disorders as well as depression and anxiety, a psychiatrist testified at the 22-year-old's murder-terror trial in an Ontario court. 

"How did this person get to the point where he killed four people and severely injured a fifth? What might have been going on in his mind? What I'm trying to give you is my opinion as a psychiatrist," Dr. Julian Gojer told jurors in the Windsor trial that began Sept. 11. 

Gojer, a forensic psychiatrist with extensive experience, met with the accused several times, including in jail and in a psychiatric hospital where he was a patient. All the meetings happened after June 6, 2021, the day the accused drove his pickup truck into the Afzaal family on a suburban street in London. 

Yumnah Afzaal, 15, her parents Madiha Salman, 44, and Salman Afzaal, 46, and family matriarch Talat Afzaal, 74, were killed. A nine-year-old boy was seriously injured by survived. 

"It seems that as far back as the age of 12 and 13, his obsessions and compulsions evolved and come more prominent, especially in the time period leading up to the alleged offences," Gojer said. 

Veltman was arrested in the hours following the attack. He has pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder and associated terrorism charges.

The accused told a police detective he planned the attack for months after watching hours of far-right material online every day. He also testified he took magic mushrooms the day before the attack. 

Gojer has diagnosed the accused with: 

All of those diagnoses are relevant to the accused's state of mind leading up to the attack and at the time he struck the family, the doctor told the jury. 

"They were all interacting with each other. You have to look at the whole picture," Gojer said. 

The accused was also homeschooled and unable to develop a sense of self or a way to cope with the world before he started public school at age 15, when he said his mother finally relented and allowed him to attend, Gojer said.

"Here's a young man who hasn't had a chance to develop an identity for himself. Children need to feel loved, to feel like they belong, to be connected. He didn't have that and he finds himself in the big world, looking for validation." 

Gojer also testified Thursday about the effects of magic mushrooms, which the accused took a day after his great-grandmother died and a day before the attack on the Afzaals.