Nunavut woman who killed husband suffered post-traumatic stress: expert witness

The sentencing hearing for Eulalie Ussak, 53, of Iqaluit continues April 25 in the Nunavut Court of Justice. (FILE PHOTO)

With testimony from a forensic psychiatrist, the sentence hearing for an Iqaluit woman who pleaded guilty last year to manslaughter got under way April 24 at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit.

Eulalie Ussak, 53, pleaded guilty to manslaughter last October, conceding that her actions contributed to the death by smoke inhalation of her husband, Ken MacFarlane, 50.

MacFarlane died Dec. 12, 2009 in a fire that Ussak helped start by pouring gasoline onto the doorway of a shack that MacFarlane often occupied, located behind their shared home.

Ussak was first charged with second-degree murder and arson, but negotiations led to a guilty plea on the downgraded charge.

Ussak suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, said Adekunle Garba Ahmed, a forensic psychiatrist at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group, who gave evidence in court via a videoconferencing system at a sentencing hearing held before Justice Susan Cooper.

Ahmed met with Ussak three times, twice in March 2012 and once in April 2013, producing two reports based on the interviews he did with Ussak.

The reports, presented by the defence, said Ussak was “an individual who presented anxiety [and was] preoccupied with cleaning, and had ideas of helplessness,” Ahmed said.

“There was no time that there was any evidence of psychosis,” Ahmed said, with his video image broadcast on two large screens on each side of the courtroom, and on computer monitors on desks.

Ahmed confirmed, when asked by defence lawyer Laura Stevens, that Ussak had no previous psychiatric history.

Ussak showed “depressive features” and had “intrusive thoughts about the incident.”

“She was struggling to get them out of her mind,” Ahmed said.

Post-traumatic stress disorder strongly affects people in a negative way and threatens their psychological well-being, he said.

The disorder can trigger avoidance behaviour, and disassociation from any situation that reminds them of the traumatic experience.

People with PTSD can also experience flashbacks and experience nightmares, factors that all contribute to some “eventually taking their own lives.”

“In the case of Ms. Ussak, the trauma relates to her past experiences in her relationship,” Ahmed said.

“Individuals drinking around her triggers anxiety,” he said.

Ahmed said that during their interview time, which was agreed to be about seven hours, Ussak repeatedly talked about being fearful and pre-occupied with cleanliness.

“The house had to be clean all the time,” Ahmed said.

Ussak’s relationship with MacFarlane was a “cycle of violence,” and “lovemaking” also became aggressive. “That went on over the 10 years that they were together,” Ahmed said.

However, any mention of sexual violence did not appear in Ahmed’s first report.

“She glossed over it by saying there was no problem,” he said.

Ahmed said that Ussak is a private person and “culturally, for her to discuss sex willy-nilly was very difficult for her.”

In Ahmed’s second report of his assessment of Ussak, when he asked her directly about sex with MacFarlane, Ussak become emotional.

When defence lawyer Stevens asked Ahmed about the significance of the shack in Ussak’s and MacFarlane’s relationship, Ahmed said that “it was an object that denied her access to her husband.”

MacFarlane used the shack for drinking, and that’s where the sexual abuse took place, Ahmed said.

“Her intention was to burn down the shack, get him home because that’s what was taking him away,” he said.

Ahmed said he strongly recommends PTSD treatment for Ussak, and that it should be culturally sensitive during her “healing process.”

Ahmed said that the reliability of his diagnosis relied on what Ussak told him, though a “social desirability tool” was used to ensure its validity, he said, when asked by Crown prosecutor Leo Lane if Ussak could have lied to “cast herself in a more sympathetic light.”

In court, a frail Ussak, talking about her 10-year relationship with MacFarlane, said, “I was a maid to him, and I was a slave to him.”

Ussak, who testified all afternoon, kept her head down most of the time, looking at the table in front of her or closing her eyes.

At certain points during her testimony, when recounting her allegations of Macfarlane’s sexual abuse, she cried.

Ussak recalled being forced to perform oral sex on MacFarlane. “I don’t do those things, [but] he would say ‘you don’t stop until I’m satisfied,’” Ussak said, while crying.

MacFarlane, who she said drank excessively, would also “blow up” if she didn’t clean and wax the floor every day, Ussak said.

Ussak alleged her first husband of 22 years also hit her and often “dragged her by the hair.”

“People don’t know this life… he drank a lot too, I would have to sleep on the couch when he had a woman,” she alleged.

“I learned from him how to keep everything inside me,” Ussak said.

She told the court about a time when her first husband allegedly threw one of their infant children across the room.

The domestic abuse never stopped for her, and on their wedding night in 2008 in Rankin Inlet, where Ussak is from, she ended up running away from him with no shoes on in December.

Though she said she was not drunk, Ussak spent the night in the drunk tank and had to be hospitalized for the damage done to her frozen feet, ending up on crutches, she said.

During his cross-examination of Ussak, Crown prosecutor Leo Lane suggested that Ussak’s claims of sexual abuse by MacFarlane were false.

“I suggest that you exaggerated or made up those claims of sexual abuse,” he said.

“You told those things to Dr. Ahmed because it makes [your case] more sympathetic,” Lane said.

Ussak, who had spoken quietly up until then, interrupted Lane.

“He did do that,” she said.

The hearing is expected to continue April 25.

On April 24, MacFarlane’s brother also listened to court proceedings via telephone. MacFarlane’s daughter was present in court, along with Ussak’s adult son and other relatives.