On Monday night, April 14, 2014, a house party was held in Calgary, Alberta Canada in celebration of Bermuda Shorts Day at the University of Calgary. This tradition was started in 1960 to celebrate the last day of the winter semester. It was a small party held at a split-level house near the university that Brendan McCabe lived in with four of his friends that he’d grown up with. After Brendan rushed home from turning in his last paper of the year, he got ready to celebrate the start of summer with friends. In his wildest dreams, he could have never imagined that the night would have ended with him in an interrogation room, his hands & clothing coated with blood. He could have never imagined the devastation of attending five of his friend’s funerals. He’d invited these friends to his party; these were people he loved.
Brendan had invited 22-year-old Matthew de Grood, who he described as his first & closest childhood friend. Matthew was the son of a high-ranking Calgary police officer. The two had met in kindergarten, had normal childhoods & excelled through primary & secondary school. Matthew was described as a good person who was kind & compassionate until his personality began to change about a month earlier. He began to isolate himself, spending more & more time in his room, becoming quiet & withdrawn. His Facebook posts became bizarre, often including quotes from Megadeth lyrics, quotes from the Bible & ramblings about reincarnation. He also posted about killing vampires by stabbing them in the heart & being “the good Darth Vader.” Matthew made twenty status updates a day which family & friends had never seen before. Just hours before the party, he posted, “Dread & the fugitive mind – the world needs a hero.” Matthew was a student at the University of Calgary & had gotten his bachelor’s degree in psychology & a minor in Law & Society. He was accepted into the school of law & had planned to start classes in the fall. Matthew lived with his mom & dad, Linda & Doug & his older sister.
In 2008, when Matthew was in Grade 11, he began using cocaine & ecstasy. Because his friends were concerned, they notified his parents who got their son involved in counseling for one year. When the drug use problem was resolved, they continued to monitor Matthew & his bank account activities. He had no criminal record & no previous history of mental illness. Because of Matthew’s recent changes in behavior, his family worried that he might be using drugs again & asked him if he wanted to start seeing his therapist, but he declined. Matthew’s dad considered trying to obtain a psychiatric hold on his son, but doubted that the doctor could hold him since Matthew was lucid.
Matthew had worked at a Safeway grocery store as a produce clerk for four years & his assistant manager said that he was an excellent employee, a nice guy & an all-around good person. Just as others had, she also noticed big changes in his personality in the previous one to two months. He seemed more paranoid & some of his co-workers started receiving unusual text messages from him. He believed that his coworkers were talking poorly about him behind his back, accusing him of being an alcoholic & a drug user, that he was abusive toward women, was mentally ill & racist. It was his belief that his coworkers were conspiring against him & excluding him from activities. During his shift at Safeway on the night of the party, he purchased three bulbs of garlic & a bottle of garlic vitamins. He also withdrew $500 from the automated teller machine at the store. Matt left Safeway at 8:31 pm, still wearing his uniform & left his car in the parking lot.
At 9 pm Brendan met Matthew at a nearby gas station since Matthew said that he couldn’t remember how to get to the house. Brendan noticed that Matthew’s behavior was extremely bizarre; while they were at the gas station, Matthew handed him a clove of garlic & told him he was going to need it for later. Brendan asked him if he was worried about vampires & Matthew told him that he was because they were real. He also gave Brendan a long knife with a white handle in a brown leather sheath that Brendan just assumed Matthew had been using for his job at Safeway. During their six minute walk to the house, he spoke of conspiracy theories, hidden meanings in songs, patterns in the Matrix movies & made odd statements, including “Obama was the Antichrist.” Matthew complained that his parents thought he was going insane & wanted to get him help & to go on medication. He also spoke about believing the apocalypse coming at midnight & several times he mentioned the blood moon turning red at midnight.
In the meantime, Matthew’s shift at Safeway was scheduled from 2:30-11 pm & his supervisor noticed that he wasn’t in the store. She checked his time card & saw that he’d signed out at 8:30 pm without notifying anyone. He had never left his shift early before. At 10:12 pm, she texted Matthew asking if he was still at Safeway & he responded, “Trust that I never hurt anyone. All will be known. 5.”
At 10:15 pm, Matthew’s long-time friend Daniel came to talk to Matthew who was sitting on the couch by himself. He immediately noted his odd, rambling topics of conversation. Daniel took Matthew on a 30-45 minute walk around the neighborhood & Matthew mentioned that the world would be ending at midnight. Daniel saw that Matthew had a box cutter in his work uniform.
When they came back to the house, they saw Matthew put on a pair of blue latex gloves & he explained that it was to hide his fingerprints in case he had to kill someone at the end of the world. Daniel told him that if it was the end of the world, his fingerprints wouldn’t matter. Matthew kept the gloves on & if anyone questioned him about it, he would put his hands in his pockets. At one point, someone saw him washing his hands while wearing the gloves. This was the first time Brendan & Daniel had ever seen their friend act so strangely.
Daniel told Brendan that Matthew was carrying a box cutter & Brendan asked him for it & told him he would put it in his room. Matthew refused, saying he needed it for his protection.
At the height of the party, there were about thirty guests in attendance & neighbors say that there were no signs that the celebrations got out of hand. The group was having a few beers around a fire pit & the mood of the party was described as laid back & relaxed.
At about 12:30 am, as people were gathered around the fire outside, a party guest saw Matthew place his cell phone on an ax blade & place it in the fire. The guest took the phone out of the fire, but Matthew grabbed it, smashed it with the ax & threw it at the fence without explanation. A friend who had known Matthew since elementary school offered him tea, but Matthew declined & said he didn’t want to get “water intoxicated.” He told him he’d drank a lot of water at work to get ready for the apocalypse but the moon hadn’t turned red at midnight so it was okay.
Just before 1 am, Brendan left the house with three guests to pick up food from McDonalds. When they came back twenty minutes later, they were met with mass hysteria.
When they’d left the house, 27-year-old Lawrence Hong was sleeping on a couch in the living room. Sitting on the couch across was 23-year-old Josh Hunter, 22-year-old Jordan Segura & 23-year-old Kaitlan “Kaiti” Perras. Matthew was in the kitchen, talking with 21-year-old Zackariah Rathwell about his band & the fact that he was heading to law school. In the bedroom upstairs, Teri Lewis, who lived in the house, was trying to fall asleep. No one else was inside the house at the time as the rest of the guests were outside.
While Matthew was in the kitchen, he was overcome with the feeling that he had to kill Zackariah before Zackariah killed him. Zackariah was a first-year student at the Alberta College of Art & Design. He was also a member of a popular local band, Zackariah & the Prophets. Matthew said that he & Zackariah had a disagreement over Buddhism. Matthew grabbed a chef knife with an 8 inch blade that he found in a knife block in the kitchen & stabbed Zackariah. By this time, there were about twenty guests present.
Before Josh, Jordan & Kaitlan could even react to what was happening, they were being attacked. Matthew later said that he began killing them “from left to right as quickly as I could.” Everything happened in such a frenzy that none of the victims had any time to react or escape. After Zackariah was stabbed in the kitchen, Josh & Jordan were stabbed on or near the couch where they’d been sitting, Kaiti was stabbed in the dining room as she tried to escape. As Matthew chased her, he said “I’m sorry, I have to do this” as he stabbed her. Lawrence was asleep on the couch & completely unaware of what was happening when he was stabbed. He noticed that Zackariah hadn’t died in the kitchen so he went back to “hunt him down.” Zackariah was stabbed seven times, Josh six times, Jordan once, Kaitlan four times & Lawrence four times. After Josh was stabbed, he ran out the front door & across the front lawn.
It was at this time, Brendan & his friends came back from McDonald’s. They heard Kaiti’s screams coming from inside the house & saw Josh come running out of the house, yelling that Matthew had a knife; Matthew followed closely behind. Josh collapsed to the ground & they saw that Matthew’s hands were coated in blood. Brendan chased after Matthew who turned to him & said, “It’s the night of the long knives.” He handed the knife to Brendan & ran off. A short distance later, Brendan caught up with him & shoved him against a parked truck. Matthew wiped his bloody hands on him & told him they were “blood brothers.” He then reached into his pocket for the box cutter that he’d brought from work & told Brendan to back off or he would be next. When Brendan got back to the house, Josh was clinging to life in the front yard.
Three 911 calls came in between 1:21 & 1:23 am, now into the early morning hours of Tuesday, April 15; when police arrived, they were met by a tremendous amount of blood & carnage. They entered through the front door & found panic throughout the main floor. Jordan & Zackariah were lying head to head on the floor, motionless & surrounded by a large pool of blood. People were attending to them, but it was too late. Lawrence was found lying in the fetal position on a couch while a man sat, applying pressure to a wound on his neck; it was also too late for him. At 1:34 am, EMS confirmed that Jordan, Zackariah & Lawrence were deceased.
At 1:39 am, Kaiti was transferred to the hospital & pronounced dead at 3 am while Josh was transferred at 1:44 am & pronounced dead at 2:17 am.
At 1:30 am Matthew was found a short distance away near the intersection of Brentwood Boulevard & Charleswood Drive. When police first found him, he was running frantically & had the appearance of trying to get away from someone. He was found with garlic cloves stuffed into his clothing & told police that it was to “keep the zombies away.” He also told police that he was an alien. He continuously yelled, “I don’t know what’s happening!” Matthew weighed 140# & it took the weight of three police officers & a 90# police dog to subdue him & in the process, he was bitten by the dog & transferred to Rockyview Hospital for treatment. The dog’s handler said that Matthew seemed to be experiencing no pain & was “like the Incredible Hulk.” When he was taken into custody & told officers that he was killing Medusas & werewolves. He told police that he tried to be merciful as he stabbed his victims, “I aimed for their heart. They put up a struggle, which made it hard, but so, you know, it wasn’t sadistic or anything. I didn’t enjoy killing at all. I said sorry, but the son of God was controlling me.”
Before the stabbing rampage, Matthew sent nonsensical texts to his parents that made them believe he was going to harm himself. Doug left the house in search of him & Susan called the police. Doug was unable to find his son in time & after learning what his son had done he said, “We will never recover from this. We hope someday to have answers to why this happened.” Despite Matthew’s family worrying that he was at risk for hurting himself, they never thought him capable of hurting anyone else. Matt was described as someone who had friends but was a homebody. He was successful & gentle before this night.
There were no indications that Matthew was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Matthew was charged with five counts of first-degree murder, pleaded not guilty & transferred to the Southern Alberta Forensic Psychiatry Center. Here, he would assess his mental status & determine his ability to stand trial.
This was the worst killing in Calgary history.
After the killings, Alberto Choy, the director of forensic psychology at Alberta Hospital Edmonton, interviewed Matthew. He told Choy that a couple of weeks earlier, he started to believe that he was the sun god & that a war between the Illuminati, werewolves & vampires was going to happen. He heard the male voice of who he believed was the devil that was telling him ‘kill them before they get you.’ He couldn’t converse with the voice that warned him & directed him about the others. Because he believed that the world was ending, he thought he was acting in self-defense & didn’t understand that it was morally wrong.
Greg Perras, Kaitlin’s father spoke before the trial & said, “The priority for us during the trial is to ensure that our loved ones will be given the full & just attention that they deserve. All we ask is that you remember how they lived – with purpose, with life, with goodness & love for their friends & family. There is no such thing as a new normal that some people talk about. There is only existing, surviving & a series of bittersweet events going forward in our families lives such as graduations, weddings & grandchildren. These milestones will be happy & they will be sad.”
The court determined that Matthew wasn’t criminally responsible for the stabbing deaths after it had been determined that he was living with undiagnosed schizophrenia at the time of the murders & it was determined that he was delusional & didn’t understand that his actions were wrong. He has been living in a supervised group home for nine years & a June 2023 ruling from Alberta’s highest court indicated that he would remain confined there.
In a statement from Matthew that was read by his lawyer, he said that he is now aware that he did something wrong. “They may not care that I was schizophrenic, the act of killing five innocent people & putting their families through that agony is unconscionable. I am aware that I did something very wrong & hope that they can understand that I am very sorry for what has happened.” Zackariah’s mom, Ronda-Lee Rathwell feels that if he was truly remorseful & never wants to do it again, he should voluntarily commit himself to be institutionalized or to stay hospitalized forever.
The Alberta Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal launched by Matthew de Grood & upheld the 2022 decision by Alberta’s Criminal Code Review Board that determined he still poses a significant safety risk. Matthew had sought absolute discharge which would allow him to be free from review board supervision or a conditional discharge that would allow him to live with his parents in Calgary while being monitored.
Each year, the board reviews Matthew’s case to determine if & when he can safely transition back into the community. In November, 2023, during an annual hearing before the Criminal Code Review Board, Matthew’s psychiatrist, Dr Oghogho Manuwa, said that Matthew had several two-week unescorted passes from the group home over the last year to visit his family & there had been no incidents. He voiced that he is a low-risk to reoffend, but if he does have another episode, other factors can come into play with a “complex forensic patient.” He indicated that Matthew was prone to episodes of anxiety & in many ways, hasn’t opened up to his medical team. He described his engagement with the treatment team as superficial because he doesn’t like to talk about what’s going on in his inner world.
At the end of the hearing, Matthew was given the opportunity to address the board & the families of the victims. He said that this process is never easy because he has to revisit the events of 2014 & the pain it causes but he promised to commit himself to remaining well. He said, “I want to make it clear today that I have no desire to inflict any more pain on the victims’ families & I’m very sorry if my appeals have added to their suffering.”
Brendan McCabe said that he’s slowly learning that he can’t carry the guilt for the symptoms he failed to notice during his interactions with Matthew & the feelings of failure to help a friend in need leading up to his mental breakdown. He realizes that without progressive change in our mental health care attitudes & services, the same stigmas & failing systems which led to the death of his five friends will continue. Preventing those in need from accessing adequate care will allow for similar tragedies to occur. Brendan feels that stigma is part of what stopped those close to Matthew from identifying his illness in the first place; no one wants to believe their loved one is unwell.
Victim impact statements were read & Kaiti’s dad Greg Perras spoke & indicated that he has been suffering from panic attacks & was seeking grief counseling. He said, “My daughter Kaiti is dead. Please have sympathy for the families who lost their children & do not try to tack on to their grief with this review process. We will fight back for our children who can no longer speak for themselves.” Kelly Hunter, mom of Josh Hunter said that not a day goes by that she wishes it wasn’t her who died instead of her son. “It breaks my heart over & over that he can’t be here. Those of us who are left here to flounder in our heartache & our thoughts of what could have been. We are also the victims.” The board will release its decision at a later date.
Jordan Segura’s mom said that her son was affectionately known as baby until he was three-years-old & every day, he did nice things for others & “gave away kindness for free.” Jordan’s brother Julian said that his brother was a mentor & a leader & lit up a room with his laughter & smile. He was a religious studies student at the University of Calgary.
Lawrence Hong’s parents & brother wore t-shirts with his picture on the front. At the time of his death, he was one week from his 28th birthday & was described as a foodie, traveler & volunteer. He volunteered with the Calgary Folk Music Festival & Fairy Tales Film Festival. He had a pure heart & had aspirations of one day becoming a city builder. Lawrence was an openly gay man who was there to help others struggling with the difficulties of coming out & making them feel like they belong.
Kaiti Perras’ older sister described her as strong willed & stubborn & someone who never gave up to be her best self. She had previously attended Mount Royal University for English after graduating from Bishop Carroll high school. She worked as a hostess at a downtown restaurant. The owner of Briggs Kitchen + Bar called her “a really great Calgary kid.” She was an accomplished ballerina & a genuine, confident young woman. Her parents don’t want Kaiti to be forgotten & want people who don’t know her to know who she was.
Josh Hunter’s sister spoke about how lucky she was to have the big brother she had. Josh’s mom said that she misses the daily things & remembers how her son was a great hugger. He was an accounting major at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business & a fellow member of Zackariah & the Prophets. He was a passionate musician who began playing the drums when he was ten after his dad took him to a Rush concert. His dad said that they cherished every moment they had with Josh & the only way they can honor him is to be strong & do good things.
Zack’s mom described her son as witty & chatty, determined & fair, loving & caring. She says that he will be remembered for the life he lived. He was a talented musician, athlete & artist. He had a zest for life & for people.
During the November hearing, Matthew’s schizophrenia was said to be in complete remission that requires two medications. Matthew continues to await the decision on his absolute discharge.
References:
- Toronto Star: Calgary man believed he was killing ‘Medusas, werewolves’ stabbing trial hears
- Murderpedia: Matthew de Grood
- Vice: Man who stabbed five students to death at a house party thought he was killing werewolves
- National Post: Calgary man found not criminally responsible for five stabbing deaths faces review
- Daily Mail: Canadian student who stabbed five to death at a house party ‘believed he was killing Medusas & werewolves & says the son of God was controlling him’
- CBC News: Man who killed 5 at Calgary house party to remain at group home after failed bid for more freedom
- Calgary Herald: Matthew de Grood tells his victims’ families he knows he’s caused them “unconscionable” pain
- Vice: My friend killed five people in my home but I won’t call him a monster
- Vice: Calgary killer was ‘psychotic’ when he stabbed five students to death according to psychiatrists
- National Post: Matthew de Grood’s texts sent his father out into the night to find his son.. Too late to stop Calgary stabbings
- CanLII: R v de Grood
- CTV News: Families of victims read ‘tributes’ at murder trial for Matthew de Grood
- Global News: ‘My Kaiti was amazing’: grieving mom remembers how Brentwood victim lived
- Maclean’s: The five victims of the Calgary stabbings
- CBC News: Matthew de Grood trial: Families of 5 stabbing victims offer emotional tributes
