Alberta man said Jesus told him to ‘Kill Satan,’ mother

An Airdrie man that was charged earlier this year with the second-degree murder of his mother is pleading not guilty and told police and EMS that Jesus told him to because she was possessed by Satan.

Alexander James Thorpe pleaded not guilty Thursday in Calgary, and his lawyer says he should be found not criminally responsible for the killing.

Thorpe was charged in January this year after the body of 48-year-old Melanie Lowen, revealed to be his mother, was found in an Airdrie home.

It started when Airdrie RCMP responded to a 911 call from a man in distress at a local business in northeast Airdrie on Jan. 13 at 8 a.m.

Thorpe walked through a car dealership naked, wearing only a gold cross around his neck and listening to his phone playing some kind of sermon.

Mounties say EMS arrived and checked on the man, Thorpe in the case, and testified in court.

“I asked him what was going on,” said RCMP Const. Aaron Forsythe.

“He said he was there to buy a used vehicle. He had blood on his hands and his feet. I asked him what the blood was from and he said he had been bitten.”

The officer told the court that Thorpe said he had killed Satan “with a knife and a door frame.”

“He said he was attacked the night before and bitten and that is what it was from. And then he said he had to kill Satan,” Forsythe said.

Paramedic testimony

EMS say they arrived at the scene and assessed Thorpe.

Paramedic Robert Hawkins testified that despite having blood on his hands, feet and face, Thorpe had no actual injuries. He said Thorpe didn’t appear to have used drugs or alcohol, and was calm.

“I asked him what happened. And he had said his mother was possessed by the devil and he was compelled by Jesus to kill her and Jesus was within him.”

Police then took Thorpe into custody and said at the time it was “in relation to the death.” They said he was transported to hospital for his “well-being.”

Thorpe was arrested on a mental health warrant.

Paramedics and investigators then conducted a “well-being” check at a home and found a woman dead inside. They called the death “suspicious.”

Hawkins received the call and was t the home of Thorpe and his mother.

“I walked through some blood on the way through the living room into the bedroom. The bedroom door was knocked off its hinges,” Hawkins said.

“There was blood on the walls, blood on the floor. She was quite literally deceased. There was a large laceration across her neck.”

Investigators reported red-stained hand and finger marks on the wall inside the bedroom and on a door. A large red-stained kitchen knife with a piece missing from the middle of the blade was recovered.

A day later on Jan. 14, the medical examiner called the death a homicide.

In addition, the court heard in testimony that blood swabbed from Thorpe’s hands matched the DNA of his mother.

Police then charged Thorpe with the second-degree murder of his mother.

“There’s no question that he was responsible for the injuries. There’s no question about that whatsoever,” Thorpe’s lawyer, Balfour Der, told reporters outside court.

“I would think the evidence is going to be he was suffering from a mental disorder that made him a completely different person.”

Der said the actions were out of character and that his client was a “loving son, best friends with his mother and a really bright young man.”

The trial is to wrap up Friday.

– With files from the Canadian Press