Thomas Hamp testifies he killed girlfriend to save her 'from a much worse death'

Testifying at his Saskatoon murder trial, Thomas Hamp said he stabbed himself and his girlfriend because he was trying to save them from “a much worse death” at the hands of the secret police he believed had been watching him. He told a King’s Bench courtroom that it was the cumulation of delusions, intrusive thoughts and false memories he’d been having since October 2021, while going on and off his medication for obsessive compulsive disorder. Hamp, 27, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of 25-year-old Emily Sanche on Feb.

20, 2022. He admits using a kitchen knife to stab her once in the chest in a Main Street East condo where they were living. Even though he doesn’t remember doing that, he remembers stabbing himself in the chest and slashing his throat, he said.



Hamp testified on Wednesday that he loved Sanche, who he’d been dating since 2017, and didn’t want her to die, but he believed he had no choice. “I was devastated, I thought I was a murderer,” Hamp said after learning Sanche had died in hospital on March 16, 2022. He told court he now believes he shouldn’t be held criminally responsible for her death because he was suffering from a mental disorder at the time, citing the Criminal Code section that At times, he’s believed he should be punished, but has grown to believe that “I need not be punished,” Hamp told Crown prosecutor Cory Bliss during cross-examination.

In the witness box, Hamp wore a suit, glasses and his blond hair cropped short. He told defence lawyer Brian Pfefferle that one of his delusions was a belief that long hair on men signified they were pedophiles, so he cut his hair three times just days before the incident. Hamp detailed how false memories about childhood sexual abuse led into delusions that his family, friends and co-workers believed he was a pedophile, and that a childhood friend was working with a secret police force to frame him as a pedophile.

Hamp said he believed the friend was breaking into their condo, spying on him and reporting his behaviour to the secret police. When he stabbed Sanche, he said he thought the secret police were coming to get him because he had failed too many “tests,” and he was trying to save her from being abducted, raped and tortured. It was a “more merciful way for us to die,” he testified.

Hamp told Bliss he had a “flashbulb memory” of Sanche screaming for help and trying to kick him away. He said when he was arrested, he told police that a man broke into the condo and attacked them. He lied so that the officers wouldn’t turn him over to the secret police, he testified.

He said he divulged most of his delusions to Sanche, who he described as the only person he trusted “implicitly,” and they reached out to his parents about his struggles, but he withheld some of his delusions from the doctors he was seeing in the months before the violence. “I didn’t want to seem crazy,” he testified. While he trusted Sanche, he said he lied to her about taking his medication, even when she had him sign a statement that he was taking 50 mg of antidepressant medication daily.

He said he believed it was being used to brainwash and chemically castrate him. Hamp told court he began resisting Sanche’s help because he believed he was fine — based on what doctors were telling him — and didn’t want to waste their time. On Tuesday, the judge-alone trial and crisis lines since December 2021 in an effort to get Hamp assessed.

She told her cousin they were dismissing her concerns because Hamp was articulating his false memories in a believable way. However, nobody forced him to get help for his mental health issues, Hamp testified. He said he quit using cannabis two days before the killing because Sanche believed it might be contributing to his delusions.

He said he started using cannabis when it was legalized; by late 2021, he was smoking, on average, two to six times a day. He told Bliss that while he doesn’t remember telling doctors he thought the cannabis was triggering his paranoia and psychosis, he admits it could have affected his delusions. Bliss questioned why he was willing to stop smoking cannabis at Sanche’s request, but refused to comply when she asked him to take his medication.

Hamp admitted he was addicted to cannabis and kept it around even after he quit. He no longer has any false beliefs about medication, Hamp said. He testified he is taking antidepressant and antipsychotic medication while in custody and feels “stable and lucid.

” He told court he wishes he’d been more open with doctors, and more insistent that he needed help. Hamp’s friend’s father testified Wednesday afternoon. Jan Semynov, a former Saskatoon police officer, said Hamp called him about a memory he claimed to have about a gun being pulled on him during a meeting with Semynov and police officers, and another memory where the chief of police was trying to arrest him for pedophilia, but Semynov stepped in.

Semynov said he assured Hamp that none of this had happened. He then called Hamp’s mother to tell her what Hamp had said. During cross-examination, he told Bliss that Hamp didn’t appear to pose a risk of violence, and he believed Hamp’s parents were taking the appropriate steps to help their son.

Hamp’s friend, Ben Semynov, testified Sanche was in his wedding party in 2021, and described her as “one of the kindest people I’ve met in my entire life, for sure.” Witnesses, including Hamp, described Sanche as a compassionate, “astute observer” who was political and passionate about social justice. Court heard she was taking classes to get her masters in counselling psychology, hoping to specialize in OCD.

Three more defence witnesses, including Hamp’s parents, are expected to testify on Thursday before the defence closes its case..