Mental ‘fitness’ concerns cited by accused killer’s lawyers

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Sabrina Kauldhar, accused of being a female serial killer with three victims to her name, appears on camera from Vanier Centre for Women.

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The heavyset woman has her hair wrapped in a black durag and she’s dressed in a bright green sweatsuit. She shifts from one leg to the other as Justice of the Peace Jennifer Veenboer asks for her name.

Kauldhar responds, leaning into the screen, but her eyes are eerily empty, as if none of this is registering. And then the lawyers who appear on her behalf seem to suggest that might be the case.

After returning from speaking in a break-out room to their potential client — funding still must be approved by Legal Aid before they’re officially retained — they ask Veenboer to mark Kauldhar’s warrant for medical attention and that she be remanded in person to a mental-health court next week, where a physician can do a psychiatric assessment.

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“We have fitness concerns,” lawyer Sherif Foda told Veenboer.

Only serious mental illness would make this senseless, allegedly cold-blooded killing spree somewhat easier to understand.

Kauldhar, 30, was arrested in Burlington on Oct. 3 after police said they tied her to the slayings of three people over three days in Toronto, Hamilton and Niagara Falls. The last two victims were believed to be random targets who their killer didn’t even know, according to police.

The killing spree allegedly began Oct. 1, when Toronto Police were called to a basement apartment on Keele St. and found the body of a woman in her 60s with signs of “physical trauma.” Investigators said the dead woman, identified in court records as Trinh Thi Vu, was known to Kauldhar. 

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Not so the next two who were killed.

On Oct. 2, emergency responders were called to a disturbance report at John Allan Park in Niagara Falls. Lance Cunningham, a 47-year-old chef at the Fallsview Casino, had gone to take his dogs for a walk before he was expected to pick up his daughter from school.

He would never make it. When officers arrived, the “fun-loving” dad who loved the Steelers, hiking and his wife of 16 years was found suffering from critical injuries and died at the scene.

The following day, at about 12:26 p.m., Hamilton Police received a 911 call requesting an ambulance for a man found stabbed in a parking lot. Mario Bilich, a well-known 77-year-old retired teacher, was transported to a hospital, where he later died of his injuries.

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Security footage showed he was followed by a woman after the grandfather left his daily visit to a Sicilian social club to go to his car.

Niagara police said when the suspect description matched in both cases, investigators linked Bilich’s death in Hamilton to Cunningham’s in Niagara Falls and then to the Toronto case.

Kauldhar has been charged with first-degree murder in Cunningham’s death and second-degree murder in the Toronto and Niagara investigations.

A high school friend told the Sun that Kauldhar, the daughter of two dentists in the Barrie area, was a straight-A student, but struggled after her mom died suddenly in 2020. She was just 54.

During the Zoom appearance, there were more hints about her possible mental instability.

Her lawyers asked duty counsel if Legal Aid would be able to assist the accused triple killer in filling out the paperwork at Vanier, but were told that’s not usually done. The justice of the peace suggested they’d have to bend those rules.

“I think there might be some assistance that is required for this individual in terms of competence or capabilities of making those phone calls on her own.”

Kauldhar was told she will appear next in person Oct. 17 at the Toronto courthouse. Still swaying, she nodded and was gone.

mmandel@postmedia.com

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