Hundreds of satanic, conspiracy photos followed Islamophobic material on killer's computer - Action News
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New Brunswick

Hundreds of satanic, conspiracy photos followed Islamophobic material on killer's computer

In painstaking detail, Matthew Raymond's defence lawyer has gone through hundredsof photos with satanic, transphobicand conspiracy referencesfound on his computer.

Matthew Raymond is facing four counts of first-degree murder

A collage of four people
Victims of the shooting, from left to right: Const. Robb Costello, 45, and Const. Sara Burns, 43, Donnie Robichaud, 42, and Bobbie Lee Wright, 32. (CBC)

In the summer months before Matthew Raymond shot and killed four people in Fredericton, he recordedmultiple videos of the sky.

For one video, Raymond focused the camera on a line of vapour among the clouds.

"That's weird," he said from behind the camera.

In painstaking detail this week, Matthew Raymond's defence lawyer has gone through hundredsof photos and videos with satanic, transphobicand conspiracy referencesfound on Raymond's computer, including a "chemtrail" conspiracy theory which positsan unknown, organized entity is poisoning the air.

Raymondshot and killed Donnie Robichaud and Bobbie Lee Wright, then Fredericton constables Sara Burns and Robb Costello when they responded to a call of shots fired at 237 Brookside Dr.on Aug. 10, 2018.

The 50-year-old has admitted to the killing, but pleaded not guilty. His defence lawyers are arguing he was not criminally responsible on account of mental illness.

From anti-Muslim to satanic materials

Alex Pate, who reviewed evidence for the defence team,began testifying last week about what he found on Raymond's hard drives.

On Thursday, Pate said thatin the summer months closer to the day Raymond shot and killed four people, he stopped downloading conspiracy theory videos.

Instead, Pate foundGoProand cellphone videos of the sky,and screen recordings of someoneusing an electronic tool such asMicrosoft Paint to make markingson YouTube pages, and doing numerical calculations with occult numbers such as 66 and 33.

Pate's testimony paintsa picture of a man whose interest in biking and video games waned as he started viewing and downloading more and more anti-Muslim, anti-Justin Trudeau, demonic and occult data.

Alex Pate, a member of Matthew Raymond's defence team, testified he reviewed tens of thousands of photos and videos on Raymond's devices between 2015 and 2018. (Ed Hunter/CBC)

In 2017 Raymond started becoming interested in ISIS and anti-Muslim material, data shows. That interest translated to the real world in June of 2017, when he protested an anti-Islamophobia bill outside the New Brunswick legislature, wearing a sandwich board that read "No Sharia-law."

But the court was shown Thursday as the year went on,Raymond's interests moved further into the conspiracy world, touching on flat earth, Illuminati and satanic referencessomehow related to Disney and other pop culture giants.

This was presented in the form of "countless" images of celebrities or politicians saved on his computer, with titles such as "evil" and "devil," Pate said,and deriving satanic meaning from the shapes of their hands or the look of their eyes.

He also identified multiple famous people as transgender, and related transgender people to the devil.

One video downloaded on Raymond's computer says Hollywood is run by "anti-Christ" demons and "occultists."

The data on his computer started shifting, and increasing in numbers, by the spring of 2017, Pate testified. The "demon" references continued until the summer of 2018, just before the shooting.

Pate also testified a YouTube channel, the name of which is under a publication ban, had videos that appeared to be made by Raymond.

Last week the Crown and defence agreed Raymond had a mental illness at the time of the shooting. This means to get a not-guilty verdict, the defence must prove to the jury, on a balance of probabilities, that Raymond's mental illness either stopped him from knowing the nature and consequences of his actions, or knowing what he was doing was wrong.