Kitchener killer faces review board hearing next month

Udo Haan

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KITCHENER — Udo Haan’s future is now in the hands of the Ontario Review Board.

Last month the Kitchener man was found not criminally responsible for killing his wife and blowing up their home.

Haan, now 63, was having paranoid delusions when he fatally strangled Edra Haan, 58, with a rope and then triggered an explosion in their home. The blast in 2018 obliterated the house at 56 Sprucedale Cres. in the Forest Heights area of Kitchener.

The Ontario Review Board, based in Toronto, is an independent tribunal with jurisdiction over people found not criminally responsible (NCR) due to a mental disorder, or unfit to stand trial.

The board is a bit like the Parole Board of Canada, balancing protection of the public with the need to reintegrate people into the community. It is made up of judges, lawyers, psychiatrists, psychologists and members of the public.

On April 12 the review board will hold a hearing to decide on one of three options: order Haan detained in a psychiatric hospital, grant a conditional discharge or grant an absolute discharge. A discharge is highly unlikely.

If the board orders Haan detained in a hospital, it can specify which hospital, the level of security and any privileges for access to the community.

Privileges are generally granted incrementally. Some people ordered detained are allowed to live in the community, under conditions such as reporting regularly to a hospital and having no contact with certain people.

Others remain in hospital for many years.

People who get a conditional discharge live in the community but must follow conditions.

(If the mental health of a person under a detention order deteriorates, the hospital can ask police to return them. Under a conditional discharge, a person can be forced to return to the hospital only if they are certified under the Mental Health Act, or by court order.)

An absolute discharge removes the person from the board’s jurisdiction.

“The Supreme Court has indicated that unless there is a positive finding that the accused is a significant threat to the safety of the public, an absolute discharge must be granted,” the board says on its website.

“As set out in the Criminal Code,” board spokesperson Joe Wright said in an interview, “the aim is always to have the NCR patient treated to a point where they no longer represent a significant threat to the safety of the public, and entitled to an absolute discharge.”

Wright declined to speak about Haan’s specific case.

About 1,500 people are under the board’s jurisdiction. It holds a hearing on each case at least once a year.

Treatment

The review board can’t force people to get treatment.

“But I think when people incrementally get better, they often realize that if they co-operate with their treatment team and depending on what their diagnosis is, if they start to take some medication, they get better, they get insight ...” Wright said.

“Family members (of people found NCR) are often the biggest boosters of the review board. They’ll say, ‘We’ve been estranged from Joe for years ... but we’ve been able to liaise with him and it’s improved his quality of life quite a bit.’ ”

The notion that someone declared NCR got away with a crime is “pretty far from the truth,” Wright said.

Some people who commit a simple assault and are found NCR can spend five to 10 years under the board’s supervision, Wright said, “whereas in provincial court you might not even get 30 days.”

“I know some observers say their impression is that the Crown raises the NCR as often as the defence does because they know that people will be supervised longer and better under the hospital system than in the regular criminal stream,” Wright said.

“It’s very clear that our recidivism rate is much lower than people that are convicted in the normal scheme.”

Murder, arson

Haan was charged with first-degree murder and arson with disregard for human life.

He did not know his actions were morally wrong, Superior Court Justice Paul Sweeny said last month in finding Haan NCR.

Haan thought his wife was part of a prostitution ring run by an organized crime gang, court was told.

“He believed that he was being followed and that other unknown men were after him,” Sweeny said. “He believed that his wife was also involved.

“Mr. Haan believed he was being persecuted and felt that his persecutors were closing in. In the grips of his delusional state, Mr. Haan resolved to kill himself, believing this to be his only way to escape his perceived persecution. Driven by his delusions, Mr. Haan resolved to kill his wife.”

Around 5 a.m. on Aug. 22, 2018, Haan entered the bedroom where his wife was sleeping. He put a rope around her neck and strangled her.

Then, he went to the basement and “opened a drip line on the natural gas line leading to the furnace,” Sweeny said.

“This action allowed the home to begin filling with natural gas. Some time later, Mr. Haan (returned) to her bedroom where he poured some gasoline over the bed and used a lighter to ignite the gasoline.”

The house exploded.

Edra Haan was found dead in the backyard.

Neighbours pulled Udo Haan from the wreckage. He was airlifted to a Hamilton hospital in critical condition. On Thanksgiving Day in 2018 — about two months after the blast — he was arrested at Grand River Hospital in Kitchener. He did not get bail. He is currently in a hospital.

The evidence is “overwhelming” that Haan had a “psychotic break with reality,” his defence lawyer, Steve Gehl, said in court.

Crown prosecutor Aaron McMaster agreed Haan should be found NCR.

‘OK with outcome’

The NCR finding did not surprise Edra Haan’s brother, Al Pinheiro.

“All along we more or less figured that was going to happen,” he said in an interview.

Pinheiro had noticed Udo Haan showing signs of mental health problems.

“He was struggling with some paranoia/schizophrenia stuff,” the Kitchener man said.

Pinheiro, 60, said his sister knew something was wrong with her husband.

“The problem is she never thought to what extent anything was going to happen because there were never any signs of physical abuse that we were made aware of,” he said.

His sister told him she did not think her husband would harm her.

“Obviously she called it wrong and she paid for it with her life,” said Pinheiro, a manager with Active Towing in Kitchener.

The NCR finding “saves a lot of pain and anguish from having to testify and be asked questions and relive that day over and over again,” he said.

“At the end of the day, we’re OK with the outcome.”

Edra Haan worked at Sun Life Financial for 35 years. Her husband also worked there. They met in high school. They have two children.

Pinheiro remembers his sister as someone who was always trying to lift the spirits of others, taking the time to ask people how they were doing.

“She was a very giving person,” he said, adding “her kids were her world.”

The NCR finding offers some closure.

“I don’t think you ever get total closure,” Pinheiro said.

“That person is still gone, right, and you just have to live with it.”

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