BARRIE - Mark Dobson sliced the throats of two women as part of a religious, satanic cult and is now pretending to be insane to avoid life in prison, a Crown attorney alleged on Friday.
"This was a cult," said Crown attorney Shannon Curry in her closing arguments. "And now he wants to be found not criminally responsible."
It was the last day on trial for 24-year-old Dobson, who is charged with the first-degree murders of his girlfriend, 32-year-old Mary Hepburn of Barrie, and 52-year-old Helen Dorrington of Cold Lake, Alta.
The Crown agrees Dobson suffers from mental illness, but not a "major mental illness" that would make him incapable of understanding that the killings were morally wrong.
Defense lawyer Mitch Eisen insists his client is schizophrenic and psychotic, and believed he was morally right to kill the women.
"He loved these women. He cared about these women," Eisen said. "Why would he kill them? ... It's because he was delusional... He thought he was helping them."
The women were found with their heads partially severed, surrounded with small dolls and satanic art in a room at a Travelodge motel in Barrie on May 2, 2012.
From the beginning, when the women were discovered in blood-soaked beds by horrified staff, Dobson admitted he was the killer.
The three met on the Joy of Satan website where Dobson and Hepburn fell in love. She moved from British Columbia to Barrie where they lived in squalor.
Dobson found great comfort in the website, where some 13,000 members discuss magic, spells and demon worship.
If found guilty, Dobson will be sentenced to life in prison. If he is found not criminally responsible, he will be treated in a psychiatric facility for an indefinite time.
Justice David Watt is expected to issue a verdict Dec. 12.
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