UWaterloo stabber may have had psychotic break in weeks before attack: psychologist [Video]

A man who stabbed a professor and two students in a University of Waterloo gender studies class last year appeared to be in a “downward spiral of functioning” and may have experienced a psychotic break in the weeks before the attack, a psychologist told his sentencing hearing Wednesday.

Geovanny Villalba-Aleman’s mental health deteriorated after he came to Canada as an international student, in part because he was ill-equipped to cope with the academic demands and other pressures placed on him, said Smita Vir Tyagi, who recently assessed him as part of the sentencing process.

He described his state of mind in the spring of 2023 as marked by intense depression, disorganized thinking and possibly mania, and reported not sleeping well or having meaningful contact with others after the school term ended and shifts at his campus part-time job dwindled, she said.

To fill the time, Villalba-Aleman spent “hours and hours” …