Nunavut man from Pond Inlet sent out for psych assessment

Jeffrey Killiktee, 27, of Pond Inlet, will be sent to the Brockville Mental Health Centre in Ontario for a psychiatric assessment, following his arrest last week on multiple charges that flow from a police manhunt and standoff, plus other incidents that occurred July 21 and July 22. (FILE PHOTO)

The Pond Inlet man at the centre of a day-long manhunt last month will be sent to a southern facility for a mental health assessment, a judge ordered at the Nunavut Court of Justice, Aug. 2.

Jeffrey Killiktee, 27, faces multiple charges of assault, as well as unlawfully causing bodily harm, stemming from incidents on July 21 and July 22.

Days later, a 15-hour search for Killiktee by the RCMP ended peacefully after a short standoff within the community’s 700-block of houses, but resulted in Killiktee being charged with two additional counts of uttering threats.

Killiktee has been held in remand custody since the incident, and remained silent during court proceedings, when he appeared in person before Justice Earl Johnson in Iqaluit, Aug. 2.

Killiktee’s lawyer, Alison Crowe, requested that the court grant her client a 60-day order for psychiatric assessment at the Brockville Mental Health Centre in Ontario.

The purpose of that assessment will be to determine if Killiktee was criminally responsible for his recent actions in Pond Inlet, Crowe told the court.

“It is whether he was, at the time of the commission of the alleged offense, suffering from a mental disorder so as to be exempt from criminal responsibility,” Crowe told Johnson.

After granting the assessment, Johnson set the next date for lawyers to speak to Killiktee’s matter for Oct. 24.

In March 2016, Killiktee walked away from court a free man after nearly two-and-a-half years in custody when Crown lawyers stayed a second degree murder charge laid against him in the death of 43-year-old Charlie Angnetsiak in September 2014.

The Crown stayed the charge after a key witness’s testimony was deemed unreliable and left lawyers with no reasonable prospect for conviction.

When a charge is stayed in court, the Crown may prosecute the accused if new evidence is turned up, though that rarely occurs.