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Cameron Mossaddad showed up at a Toronto-area hospital four years ago with a cut that needed stitches, bruises and a strange story.

He said he had been attacked with a steak knife by his 70-year-old grandmother, forcing him into a life-and-death struggle that ended when he strangled the woman with his legs.

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Ontario man refused to accept he was mentally ill, but six lawyers later is found not responsible for murdering his grandmother Back to video

Police eventually dismissed the tale as a fabrication and charged Mossaddad, then 23, with first-degree murder.

But as evidence emerged that he suffered from psychotic delusions in which his grandma was part of a plot by the Illuminati to assassinate him, the fake story raised an interesting question: Did it show that he knew the murder was morally wrong, and therefore he could be convicted as a criminal and sent to prison?

I accept that he likely came to believe that he had to kill his grandmother in order to save his life

A judge answered the question this week, ruling that Mossaddad was not criminally responsible for the slaying of Herma Parkes because of mental illness. Mossaddad actually believed the cold-blooded murder was warranted, and made up the self-defence story so the police wouldn’t think he was “crazy,” concluded Justice Joseph DiLuca.