Hundreds of satanic, conspiracy photos followed Islamophobic material on killer's computer

In the summer months before Matthew Raymond shot and killed four people in Fredericton, he recorded multiple videos of the sky.

For one video, Raymond focused the camera on a line of vapour among the clouds.

"That's weird," he said from behind the camera.

In painstaking detail this week, Matthew Raymond's defence lawyer has gone through hundreds of photos and videos with satanic, transphobic and conspiracy references found on Raymond's computer, including a "chemtrail" conspiracy theory which posits an unknown, organized entity is poisoning the air.

Raymond shot and killed Donnie Robichaud and Bobbie Lee Wright, then Fredericton constables Sara Burns and Robb Costello when they responded to a call of shots fired at 237 Brookside Dr. on Aug. 10, 2018.

The 50-year-old has admitted to the killing, but pleaded not guilty. His defence lawyers are arguing he was not criminally responsible on account of mental illness.

From anti-Muslim to satanic materials

Alex Pate, who reviewed evidence for the defence team, began testifying last week about what he found on Raymond's hard drives.

On Thursday, Pate said that in the summer months closer to the day Raymond shot and killed four people, he stopped downloading conspiracy theory videos.

Instead, Pate found GoPro and cellphone videos of the sky, and screen recordings of someone using an electronic tool such as Microsoft Paint to make markings on YouTube pages, and doing numerical calculations with occult numbers such as 66 and 33.

Pate's testimony paints a picture of a man whose interest in biking and video games waned as he started viewing and downloading more and more anti-Muslim, anti-Justin Trudeau, demonic and occult data.

In 2017 Raymond started becoming interested in ISIS and anti-Muslim material, data shows. That interest translated to the real world in June of 2017, when he protested an anti-Islamophobia bill outside the New Brunswick legislature, wearing a sandwich board that read "No Sharia-law."

But the court was shown Thursday as the year went on, Raymond's interests moved further into the conspiracy world, touching on flat earth, Illuminati and satanic references somehow related to Disney and other pop culture giants.

This was presented in the form of "countless" images of celebrities or politicians saved on his computer, with titles such as "evil" and "devil," Pate said, and deriving satanic meaning from the shapes of their hands or the look of their eyes.

He also identified multiple famous people as transgender, and related transgender people to the devil.

One video downloaded on Raymond's computer says Hollywood is run by "anti-Christ" demons and "occultists." 

The data on his computer started shifting, and increasing in numbers, by the spring of 2017, Pate testified. The "demon" references continued until the summer of 2018, just before the shooting.

Pate also testified a YouTube channel, the name of which is under a publication ban, had videos that appeared to be made by Raymond. 

Last week the Crown and defence agreed Raymond had a mental illness at the time of the shooting. This means to get a not-guilty verdict, the defence must prove to the jury, on a balance of probabilities, that Raymond's mental illness either stopped him from knowing the nature and consequences of his actions, or knowing what he was doing was wrong.

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