Despite his rambling outbursts and odd grunting sounds, jurors have been told accused murderer Emanuel Kahsai was found mentally fit to stand trial.

On Friday, the day after jurors sent a letter to the judge asking if Kahsai had been forensically assessed, they were told Kahsai was admitted to a forensic facility for an assessment and found mentally fit.

"Please do not give anymore consideration to this issue," Justice Glen Poelman told the panel. "Please do not allow it to affect your assessment of the evidence."

​​Kahsai is on trial for first-degree murder in the death of his mother, Selma Alem, 54, and second-degree murder in the death of Julie Tran, a young mentally disabled woman who was cared for by Alem.

Alem's best friend, Susan Hills, testified Friday that in the year leading up to the killings, Kahsai had become angry and threatening toward his mother.

She told jurors that Kahsai had threatened to kill Alem at least twice and that her friend had become so fearful of her son that she sought an emergency protection order in the months before the pair were killed.

The bodies of both woman were discovered in Alem's Coventry Hills home on Oct. 19, 2015. They had died after suffering several knife injuries to their necks, faces and bodies.

Kahsai, who had recently threatened to kill his mother, was arrested later that night at an apartment in Edmonton. Alem's missing SUV was found just a few blocks away.

Blood from both women were found on Kahsai's sneakers, according to prosecutors Todd Buziak and Matt Dalidowicz.

Alem lived as a "supportive roommate" with two disabled adults — Tran, who died alongside Alem, and Darrel Beaumont, a man in his 50s who has significant mental disabilities after suffering brain injury as a child.

Kahsai has been removed from the courtroom and is watching and listening from another room. The 32-year-old is representing himself, but each time he is given the chance to cross-examine a witness, he shouts requests for the U.S. Army and FBI to be contacted.

On Friday afternoon, Poelman told jurors that defence lawyer Mark Takada had been appointed as a "friend of the court" and would sometimes be asking cross-examination questions of some of the witnesses.

Poelman has ordered Kahsai muted and taken off closed-circuit TV screens in the courtroom so that he is not a distraction for jurors.

Hills told jurors that in 2005, Kahsai's best friend killed his brother Mike with a cleaver and received a five-year sentence.