Psychiatric assessment ordered for N.S. man charged with murder

An elderly Nova Scotia man who's accused of murdering his wife has been ordered to undergo a psychiatric assessment to see whether he's fit to stand trial and whether he can be held criminally responsible.

Edmund Joseph Organ, 76, appeared in provincial court in Dartmouth Thursday morning with his lawyer Eugene Tan to face the murder charge.

Tan said there are a lot of complications with this case.

"I don't want to get too much into it other than to say I think there's a lot of circumstances that will need to be considered," he said.

Tan said Organ is having difficulty.

"I would say he's not in the best of health, even considering his age, so this would be hard on anybody. I think it is pretty hard on him."

RCMP said in a news release earlier this week that a man called them on Sunday to say he had killed a woman inside his residence on Agincourt Crescent in Cole Harbour. Police say they surrounded the residence and took Organ into custody.

The body of 74-year-old Judith Organ was found inside the home.

The case will return to court on July 9.