‘The depths of his illness’

Jonathan Vader Lewis was begging for help before he killed his father, Teenage Head founding guitarist Gord Lewis

When Elise and Brian Lewis arrived at his brother’s Catharine Street South apartment last August they found Gord in bed and his son Jonathan with a bag packed to leave.

Gord often spent much of the

day in bed and could be found many evenings — often with Jonathan — having a drink at a local bar. Mental illness was no stranger or secret in the Lewis family.

Jonathan — or Johnny as Brian calls him — had struggled much

of his life. As an adult, he got himself into trouble threatening people, including politicians, members of the media and arts community. He would often become fixated on a person or a perceived injustice. Gord, Jonathan and Brian had all spent time in hospital before for mental illness, but what Elise and Brian encountered that day was a new level.

“We didn’t know the depths of his illness,” said Elise.

The week prior, Brian and Elise had agreed that they reached their limit with Jonathan. But on that Tuesday, Aug. 2, Johnny was texting Brian begging him for help. Brian, Jonathan’s godfather, had helped care for his nephew since he was a kid and they had a bond. When Elise came home, he showed her the text messages and they agreed to go to the apartment.

Jonathan told them his father was poisoning him with anthrax. He had a welt on his arm where he claimed the poison went in. It was all part of a conspiracy to kill him.

Brian tried to talk Jonathan into going to hospital. He almost had him convinced, but Jonathan was scared. He believed the hospital, cab drivers, police and others were all working together against him.

Jonathan told them he’d visited multiple hospitals, but was sent away. How? Elise asked. He didn’t drive. Elise believed these claims of hospital visits must have been part of his delusion.

During a 2019 stay at St. Joseph’s West 5th Campus, Jonathan had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder — a diagnosis Brian and Elise didn’t learn until later. Surely any hospital who saw him in this state would recognize how seriously mentally ill he was and admit him, she thought.

It was only later in court that they learned Jonathan actually had attended emergency rooms in Hamilton, Toronto and Brampton — 10 different times between July 28 and Aug. 4. He repeatedly told medical staff that he had been poisoned by his father and often left without being seen.

During one visit to Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto on Aug. 1, Gord went with him. After hearing from Jonathan, doctors spoke to Gord. He said he felt safe living with his son “most of the time” but “gets concerned when he makes accusations about him.”

Jonathan was discharged with an outpatient psychiatrist appointment for Aug. 11. But Gord was dead and Jonathan was arrested before he had a chance to make it. He would eventually be found not criminally responsible for the murder in December.

But back in the apartment that Tuesday in August, Brian went into Gord’s bedroom to tell him what Jonathan was saying.

“Yeah he’s been talking about that for weeks, I don’t know Brian,” Brian recalls Gord saying.

Elise told Jonathan she would take him to a walk-in clinic the next morning. She thought they could do a blood test, show him he wasn’t being poisoned and that might lead him to accept mental-health care. He was not violent or lashing out; he looked terrified.

“He was literally begging me,” she said.

Aunt Elise, I really need your help, he said. How can you not help?

They left the apartment together in an Uber, heading back to Brian and Elise’s place. The three of them squished into the back seat. Jonathan had his phone extended in front of him with 911 on the screen, ready to make the call if anything happened.

“That’s how scared he was,” Elise said.

Back at their apartment Jonathan was calm, but didn’t talk much. They ordered pizza. Brian and Jonathan stayed up late, sitting in recliners in front of the television. At one point he asked Brian if he was going to try to kill him.

Brian’s instinct was to say something snarky. But then he realized Jonathan did not understand, so he backtracked and calmly told Jonathan he was safe. Brian finally went to bed around 4 a.m.

“I don’t think (Jonathan) slept,” Brian said.

The next morning when Elise got up, Jonathan no longer wanted to go to the clinic. He said he talked to his dad and was going home.

“He was just calm, and I couldn’t force him,” she said.

So she walked him downstairs to a cab.

The next day, Thursday, Jonathan sent Brian text messages thanking him for letting him stay over. The day after he sent messages saying, “I love you.”

On Sunday, Aug. 7, police showed up at their door to let them know Gord was dead and Jonathan had been arrested.

Gord had already been dead some time before police found his body. A staff member from The Spectator called police a little after noon following multiple emails to media from Jonathan about his dad poisoning him, including a reference to his father being dead and that his body was “starting to decay.”

When officers arrived and spoke with Jonathan, they saw a body and blood on the walls.

Jonathan immediately identified the body as his father and was arrested. At the police station, he told detectives Gord had been drugging him in his sleep and was going to “get away with (killing him) that night” so he grabbed a knife from the kitchen.

Since the tragedy, Brian and Elise have struggled to reconcile what happened. The family is fractured, with a mix of grief, guilt they could have done more, fear, anger and compassion. “The ripple effect is huge,” Elise said, and the ripple is still going.

Brian is not responsible for what his nephew did, but he cannot be swayed from his guilt. He feels guilty for not doing more, for not seeing how sick Jonathan was and how dangerous the situation was.

The truth is that when Jonathan left his place just days before the murder, Brian believed his nephew was more likely a harm to himself. That Jonathan could kill his dad was unimaginable.

Brian and Elise knew Jonathan needed psychiatric help. They wanted him to go to hospital, but could not force him.

And Brian knows just how scary going to hospital can be. He’s been there himself several times over the years. The psychiatric emergency at St. Joseph’s hospital is “horrific,” he said. It takes eight to 12 hours just to “get across the hall” in the psychiatric emergency. Once admitted, the help available is fantastic, he said, but it takes everything to get there.

“It’s almost like you have to beg for help,” said Elise, who has been Brian’s advocate in hospital each time he’s gone.

In September, under the enormous weight of the loss of his brother, and anger and grief over his nephew, Brian found himself in hospital again. Elise brought him to hospital, where they sat in the emergency department for nine hours.

They were taken into a room, near empty, with holes in the wall, and waited longer. It was better than past visits during which Brian has slept on the floor with his jacket rolled up as a pillow, Elise said.

Brian said he had to keep repeating to everyone that he may harm himself. He knew he had to say he was suicidal or at risk of hurting others to stay. When one doctor suggested he should go to AA, Brian told him, “If you let me go, I’m going to kill myself.”

Brian knows what it feels like to be suicidal. He says he wasn’t that day, but was spiralling and needed to keep repeating the words to get the help he desperately needed.

“It’s like overwhelming, I’m-onthe-edge-of-a-cliff fear,” he said, of how he felt that day.

He was eventually admitted — on the couple’s wedding anniversary — and ended up at West 5th for a month, during which he received great care. But he knows he got there because he had an advocate — Elise — by his side. So many, including Jonathan, do not have that.

Elise and Brian have not spoken to Jonathan since he’s been hospitalized. Elise isn’t sure she wants to — sometimes she’s too angry. She goes back and forth with her emotions, but says, on balance, she has “compassion more than anything else.”

Brian is angry, too. Angry at the system that failed his family and angry at the way he feels some took advantage of his brother because of his mental illness. One day, when the time is right, he knows he needs to go see his nephew, his godson. If only for his own health.

While some may shy away from laying bare their trauma, from exposing their family’s grief, Brian and Elise want to shine a light on it.

“If it helps just one person …,” Brian said.

It’s almost like you have to beg for help.

ELISE LEWIS SISTER-IN-LAW OF GORD LEWIS

Brian is angry, too. Angry at the system that failed his family and angry at the way he feels some took advantage of his brother because of his mental illness