Warning: This story contains disturbing details.
A man who bludgeoned his girlfriend to death with a hammer in their New Westminster home two years ago has been found not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder.
Andywele Carlan Mullings was tried in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster earlier this month for the second-degree murder of his intimate partner, Emily Appleyard, on Tuesday, March 2, 2021.
Mullings admitted to causing Appleyard’s death by striking her in the head with a hammer several times.
Mullings was originally charged with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon, but the charge was upgraded after Appleyard died of her injuries.
On June 23, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Martha Devlin found Mullings was in an “acutely psychotic state” at the time of the killing and lacked the capacity to know that his actions were morally wrong.
The hammer attack followed several days of increasingly visible mental deterioration by Mullings, according to Devlin’s judgment — a series of events that culminated in him being taken to Lions Gate Hospital on the morning of the attack.
There, a nurse determined that Mullings needed “emergent care and rapid medical attention” and required assessment by a psychiatrist for “paranoid and unusual behaviour.”
But he left the hospital at 11:19 a.m., before he could be admitted.
Mullings and Appleyard returned to their Princess Street downstairs suite an hour later. He turned on her with the hammer just moments after they got home.
The week before: ‘They trying to kill me fo years’
Devlin’s judgment traces the decline of Mullings’ mental state in the week leading up to the attack.
On Friday, Feb. 26, Mullings left work and didn’t return, despite efforts by his boss to contact him.
On Saturday, he went to the home of a former partner, with whom he had two children, and expressed concerns about the safety of the children, who were with a neighbour at the time.
Mullings called police to report concerns about his children’s well-being. When he refused to leave the woman’s home, despite assurances that the children were safe, Mullings was taken into custody overnight.
On Sunday, he returned to her home and apologized but insisted that someone was out to hurt her, their children and himself. The woman described his behaviour as “panicked, frantic and manic.”
On Monday, Mullings sent text and audio messages to an aunt telling her “they trying to kill me fo years” using “slow poison.”
Monday, March 1: Girlfriend worried about calling police ‘because Mr. Mullings is Black’
That evening, Mullings called his boss, talking and crying in a manner his boss described as “gibberish.” He claimed he was being watched, that he was going to be murdered, that he was being poisoned by his girlfriend and that she wanted to make an insurance claim.
His boss was so concerned about Mullings’ behaviour that he urged Appleyard to call the police or an ambulance.
“Ms. Appleyard expressed concerns about calling the police because Mr. Mullings is Black,” said Devlin’s judgment. “Instead she said she would take Mr. Mullings for a walk.”
Overnight that night, the upstairs neighbours could hear shouting and crying, “with Mr. Mullings crying the loudest.”
Tuesday, March 2: Police carry out welfare check, take Mullings to hospital
Devlin’s judgment outlines in detail the events of the day of the attack.
Between 4:54 a.m. and 5:10 a.m. that morning, Mullings took a series of photos of a piece of paper with writing on it. He called his boss at 5:30 a.m. and texted him a photo of the “incomprehensible” notations.
For the next hour, there were a series of communications between Appleyard, Mullings, two of Mullings’ aunts and his grandmother. Appleyard said Mullings was behaving abnormally and not bathing, eating or sleeping. Mullings, meanwhile, said “Today them going to kill me” and claimed again that Appleyard had taken out insurance on him “to have him and his children killed.”
Mullings left for work by 6:40 a.m. At 6:56 a.m., Appleyard called 911 requesting a welfare check.
“In this call, Ms. Appleyard is heard expressing her gentle concern that Mr. Mullings might harm himself,” the judgment said.
Appleyard also contacted Mullings’ boss to let him know Mullings wasn’t doing well and that she had called police.
Early that morning, a New Westminster Police Department officer called Mullings, who told him Appleyard “was involved in a conspiracy to smuggle children.”
The officer described Mullings as “rambling” and arranged for members of the West Vancouver Police Department to visit Mullings at his worksite on the North Shore. Two West Vancouver officers found him “not making sense and rambling,” but they concluded they didn’t have a basis to apprehend him under the Mental Health Act.
They did, however, convince him to go to hospital voluntarily. A recording of their drive with Mullings to Lions Gate Hospital reveals Mullings as distraught and crying, repeating that he was being “slow poisoned” by Appleyard, who was “part of a big plan and plot” and that “it’s gonna end real quick.”
While waiting at the hospital, Mullings communicated with a cousin over Instagram, text and video calls, repeating his claims about “slow poisoning.”
Tuesday, March 2: After the hospital
Following his preliminary assessment by a nurse at Lions Gate Hospital, Mullings walked out before he could be admitted.
Mullings initially called his boss asking for a ride home, but the boss declined, so Mullings said he would contact Appleyard. She drove to the hospital, picked him up and took him back to his worksite to get his car.
They both headed back to New Westminster, arriving home at about 12:19 p.m.
At 12:19 p.m., Appleyard texted one of Mullings’ aunts, saying: “He’s back home now and seems like himself again. He has no memory of any of the things he said. Thank you so much.”
At 12:22 p.m., Mullings took a photo of Appleyard lying in blood on the kitchen floor and posted it to Facebook.
After the arrest: ‘Resolving psychiatric episode with paranoid and somatic symptoms’
Mullings was located and arrested in Vancouver at two o’clock that afternoon, with Appleyard’s blood on his cheek and clothing. He continued to tell police he had been poisoned, that someone was trying to kill him and that he was “trying to stay alive,” the judgment notes.
More than two weeks later, on March 17, he was assessed by a psychiatrist at the North Fraser Pretrial Centre, who concluded he appeared to be experiencing “a resolving psychiatric episode with paranoid and somatic symptoms.”
Transcripts of phone calls he made to his former partner and others while in custody between March 13 and 30 show he continued to display signs of “delusional thinking and paranoid beliefs that he was being poisoned and people were trying to kill him.”
Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Robert Lacroix testified at Mullings’ trial, outlining his opinion that Mullings qualified for a diagnosis of schizophreniform disorder and that he was suffering from “acute psychotic illness” at the time of the attack. (Schizophreniform disorder causes symptoms of schizophrenia but lasts only one to six months, according to the MSD Manual.)
“Dr. Lacroix described Mr. Mullings’ deterioration as ‘sudden and dramatic,’” Devlin wrote in her judgment. “During his testimony, Dr. Lacroix agreed that at the time of offence, Mullings was ‘intensely or highly psychotic.’”
Mullings was in a state of “extreme paranoia, disorganization and fear for his life,” according to Lacroix, with a particular “psychotically driven fear” of Appleyard.
“As Dr. Lacroix explained, while Mr. Mullings had the general capacity to know that it was wrong to kill another person, his acutely psychotic state stripped him of ‘the capacity to apply that knowledge to the situation at hand,’” Devlin wrote.
Review Board hearing to determine whether Mullings remains in psychiatric custody
In her June 23 judgment, Devlin ordered that Mullings be confined to the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital pending a disposition hearing by the Review Board 45 days after the verdict.
That hearing will determine whether he remains in custody at the Coquitlam-based facility for further treatment.
Follow Julie MacLellan on Twitter @juliemaclellan.
Email Julie, [email protected]
