'I was barely holding on': Accused testifies about mental state in ongoing murder trial

Nathaniel Veltman, 22, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges in the June 2021 truck attack on a London, Ont. family.

Veltman has already admitted in court he was driving the truck that struck five members of a Muslim family.

Talat, Salman, Madiha and Yumnah Afzaal all died while a nine-year-old boy suffered serious injuries.

Veltman started his testimony Thursday morning and continued on Friday.

"I had reached a point where I was so deranged, but I convinced myself I was fine," Veltman told the jury about his mental state in the spring of 2021.

At the time, Veltman testified he was addicted to viewing “far right political content” and “extremely outlandish and offensive jokes.”

Veltman told the jury he was spending more and more of his time online, accessing offensive content and videos using the dark web.

The websites he accessed focused on alleged censorship by mainstream media of what Veltman referred to as minority on white crime.

“This content started to warp my view of the world,” Veltman told the jury. “It filled me with a loathing of society, loathing of the world.”

Veltman also told the jury he made two unsuccessful attempts at suicide.

“I was barely holding on, trying to function normally,” he said.

Veltman admitted some of the content he viewed — specifically a shooting video made by a New Zealand man — was shocking at first, but after watching it repeatedly he became “desensitized.”

He told the jury he would get into “fits of rage” while looking at online conspiracy theories.

“I said, 'I’m going to commit an act of violence,'” he testified late Friday.

Veltman’s grandmother died on June 4, 2021, and he admitted to the jury he didn’t react well to “seeing the body.”

He testified he consumed the hallucinogenic psilocybin – commonly referred to as magic mushrooms – in the early morning hours of June 5, 2021.

It was as close as Veltman’s testimony got to his actions leading up to the evening of June 6, 2021, when the family was struck, as the jury was released early on Friday and was asked to return on Oct. 16 at 2:15 p.m.

Justice Renee Pomerance told the jurors she had some matters she needed to discuss with the lawyers.

As those discussions happened in the absence of the jury, they are subject to a publication ban.