'I was an outcast': Accused in terror attack offers his side of the story

WARNING: The video and the details in this article may be disturbing to some viewers

Nathaniel Veltman, 22, took the stand Thursday in a Windsor, Ont. courtroom in his ongoing murder trial.

Veltman is charged with four counts of terrorism-motivated first-degree murder and one count of terrorism-motivated attempted murder for the June 2021 attack on a Muslim family in London, Ont.

“I didn't know how to connect with people, I didn't have any social skills,” Veltman testified Thursday. "I didn't have a normal upbringing."

Childhood:

The jury learned Veltman was home-schooled by his mother from kindergarten until grade 11.

He described his mother as “extremely religious” and strict.

According to Veltman, he and his five siblings had no connection to anyone outside their church, based in Strathroy, Ont.

“I hated [my mother]. I have to admit that,” Veltman testified.

He said any objections to his mother’s parenting or teaching methods were met with punishments including spanking, having to repeatedly write lines of biblical scripture, or being assigned extra “hours” of chores.

Teenage years:

By the age of 12 or 13, Veltman said he started to realize he wasn’t “normal.” He told the jury he felt compelled to make “weird noises” to annoy his siblings and obsessively thought about not having “evil or violent” thoughts.

“Most of my abnormal behaviour I attributed to being home schooled,” Veltman said.

Veltman told the jury his mother wouldn’t take him to speak to a “secular therapist” for fear it would further ruin his mind. She relied instead on Bible scriptures.

Veltman testified his mother treated him differently than his siblings and that she behaved in a more favourable fashion to him when his father was present.

His parents separated when Veltman was 15 years old, and Veltman told the jury he moved out of his house two weeks after he turned 16.

After years of begging, Veltman said his mother eventually agreed to let him go to a public high school, but once there, he said it was difficult to fit in.

“I had difficulty making connections,” he said “I was an outcast” who started to hang out with the “wrong” crowd of students who were breaking rules, like drinking and using drugs.

Veltman did finish high school, although he testified he was working full time at an egg processing facility at the same time.

Adulthood:

He moved to London in early 2020 because he was in college for architectural design and didn’t want to commute from Strathroy.

Once the pandemic hit, Veltman said he started making bad choices including impaired driving and drinking regularly. So much so, he told the jury he blew the engine on his first car.

He told the jury he had been thinking of getting a truck on the advice of work friends, who also offered to go fishing with him.

“I thought it would be fun,” Veltman testified, while then admitting he only went fishing once.

The jury previously learned Veltman bought a one-year warranty, and he took possession of the truck on May 19, 2021, less than three weeks before the attack.

The weekend before he was arrested, Veltman was “off roading” with his brother near Sarnia and he thought the branches he was hitting were scratching the paint. So, he said that’s’ when and why he decided to put a grill guard on the front of his truck.

He told the jury he bought the one-year warranty because it seemed like a “good idea” since he damaged his first car.

Hicks jumped from this point in time, to after Veltman’s arrest and didn’t ask him any questions about the attack itself.

Of the items found by police in his truck, Veltman said he had the machete for years, one of the knives was a gift from his parents, the other knife he bought for work but later learned he couldn’t bring a non-foldable knife to work, and his airsoft pistol was used for a “cheaper” hobby than going to a paintball course.

Hicks then went backwards to September of 2020 when Veltman told the jury he was going through a “process of decline,” marked by use of psychedelic drugs and spending a “copious” amount of time clicking on “extreme websites.”

“I started to constantly watch this conspiracy theory garbage,” Veltman told the jury.

Veltman said he even decided to throw away all of his food to follow a strict diet from one of the website authors and he destroyed the furniture in his apartment.

Veltman testified all day Thursday but at no point was he asked about his actions on June 6, 2021; the day he has already admitted to the jury, he drove into the Afzaal family while they waited to cross Hyde Park Road at South Carriage Road.

Veltman is expected to return to testify Friday.