A man who admits his actions caused the death of a Saanich man in 2021 will undergo an assessment to determine if he was suffering from a mental disorder that could render him not criminally responsible.
Defence lawyer Bobby Movassaghi requested the assessment Monday on the first day of Scott Matheson’s second-degree murder trial in the death of 64-year-old Robert Dobronay. The trial adjourned Monday pending the assessment.
At the time of Dobronay’s death, Matheson was staying with a friend who lived in a suite next to Dobronay. Matheson attacked Dobronay because he believed the man was poisoning him, according to a detailed statement of facts agreed upon by Matheson and read in court by Crown prosecutor Leslie Baskerville.
The statement of facts lays out the events leading up to Matheson and Dobronay’s first meeting and the fatal attack that soon followed, as well as the content of Matheson’s phone calls and texts in the days and weeks after.
On Sept. 5, 2021, Matheson got in touch with an old friend who invited him to sleep in his storage room, which had a mattress in it, Baskerville said. The friend lived in a ground-floor suite next to Dobronay’s unit in a home on Battleford Avenue, and the storage room shared a wall with Dobronay’s unit.
Matheson arrived later that day and consumed crystal methamphetamine with the friend and his girlfriend, Baskerville said.
“From time to time that day, Mr. Matheson made unsolicited comments about God, demons raping him and having a third eye secreting [psychedelic drug] DMT,” she said.
Matheson spent the night sleeping in the storage room and determined that he was being poisoned by noxious fumes or gases, which he believed were being forced into the storage room through the wall shared with Dobronay’s kitchen. There was a door between the storage room and the kitchen that had been blocked off years before and was not passable, Baskerville said.
Matheson suspected his friend and other residents of the home, including Dobronay, were directing the fumes into the storage room where he slept.
On Sept. 6, Matheson’s friend went to work, leaving Matheson sleeping in the storage room. The friend had woken him up and Matheson said he was sick and needed to sleep longer.
Eventually, he went to sit in the backyard. At some point, Dobronay went into the yard and introduced himself to Matheson, pointing out his unit.
“Mr. Matheson turned the conversation to a discussion of God and how one never knew if today was one’s last day to live,” Baskerville said.
When Matheson’s friend returned, Matheson told him he believed he was being poisoned and he wanted to beat up Dobronay.
The friend, who was also a close friend of Dobronay, said Dobronay was harmless and told Matheson to leave him alone.
When the friend left again, Matheson went to confront Dobronay, at first leaving because Dobronay wasn’t fully dressed, but then returning and attacking Dobronay.
Matheson hit Dobronay in the head, face and neck, rendering him unconscious, breaking his nose and fracturing his voice box, Baskerville said.
“Mr. Matheson caused Mr. Dobronay’s death by a combination of blunt head and neck trauma, together with asphyxia,” she said.
Matheson wrapped fabric around Dobronay’s face, secured with electrical tape that partially covered his mouth, and bound his wrists and ankles together.
After the attack, Matheson stole drugs and watches from his friend and took a ferry to the mainland, Baskerville said.
Dobronay’s body was found in his bedroom on Sept. 8 by the friend who lived next door.
Matheson was arrested on Sept. 15 and released the following day without charges.
In a phone call with his sister after his release, Matheson admitted to beating a man so badly he thought he had killed him, Baskerville said. In a second call, he told his sister the police believed he had murdered someone, but he had only beaten him up.
When his sister repeated that he said he had beaten a man so badly, he thought he had killed him, Matheson told her: “Don’t you ever [expletive] tell a soul I said that,” Baskerville said.
Matheson pleaded not guilty Monday to the second-degree murder charge.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Gaul agreed to order an assessment at the forensic psychiatric hospital to be completed within 30 days to help determine Matheson’s mental state at the time of the attack.
Matheson will remain in custody while the assessment is conducted.
Friends and family of Dobronay filled the courtroom on Monday. One friend, who did not want to be named, said Dobronay was a kind man who always offered help and wouldn’t hurt a fly.
