Kelowna Law Courts.

(KATHY MICHAELS / iNFOnews.ca)

A little known condition called “delusional disorder-jealous type” and alcoholism is shaping up to be the defense of a Surrey senior who bludgeoned his girlfriend to death with a wine bottle, while on a weekend getaway to West Kelowna in July 2018.

Tejwant Danjou had been having escalating delusions in the months leading to his fatal attack on longtime girlfriend Rama Gauravarapu, psychiatrist and defense witness Todd Tomita told the court today, June 2. He said the "pathological jealousy" that emerged contributed to the violence that ensued. 

In December 2019, after Tomita interviewed Danjou, he put together a 30-page report drawing on interviews he had with the then-70-year-old.

Today, he told the court some of his findings, which included the understanding that the "intensity and severity of delusions in the lead up to what happened" were shaping Danjou's actions.

He had decided that his longtime partner was a "nymphomaniac" and having an affair and this belief was causing him to behave strangely.

Among the examples Tomita drew upon was a video Danjou showed him of his longtime partner while they were on a flight to Las Vegas.

"I took it as nothing, but he said a man sitting next to him fondled her leg," Tomita told the court, adding later that he perceived that Gauravarapu was flirting with the man.

In another incident conveyed to Tomita, Danjou explained how he forced a confrontation with the realtor he suspected she was having affair with, based on an address he found.

Tomita said there was also a recording of Danjou trying to extract a confession from Gauravarapu while he was intoxicated and enraged.

All of his thoughts were "affecting him more emotionally and he was going to emotional extremes."

The last clear delusion, potentially a hallucination, Danjou conveyed was of Gauravarapu standing in front of him in a white bathrobe, saying "yes, I had sex with him."

Tomita said there was no evidence that this actually happened because when her body was found it was fully clothed. The affair appears to have been entirely in Danjou's head.

While jealousy is one thing, Tomita said that the nature of this condition put such pressure on Danjou that he was going to "emotional extremes" before that fatal encounter.

"Coworkers said he would break down and cry at work while talking about the victim, which didn’t seem to accord with his need to present himself in a positive fashion, so people would see him competent and professional," he said.

When under cross-examination from Crown counsel, Tomita said that it's not implausible that he also would be able to hide this intense behaviour-shaping jealousy from people who wouldn't approve of such actions.

Tomita also said that one of his medical peers could theoretically look at the set of behaviours Danjou had and not reach the same diagnosis.

Gauravarapu's last moment was laid out in court testimony last March, when a witness told the court she was seen covered in blood and laying on the floor of the West Kelowna Best Western hotel room she'd been staying in.

A hotel employee had knocked at the door of the hotel suite after a disturbance and at first, Danjou told her to go away. With a little more persistence on her part, he opened the door wide enough she could see in the room.

"He opened the door and (Danjou) was standing there in (what she thought was) blood or wine and she saw a female on the floor who asked her to call 911," Sgt. Justin Abels said.

She did and police arrived soon after.

By then, however, Danjou was gone, Abels said, and he was told by another officer that Gauravarapu was "gurgling and unresponsive."

Danjou was later found hiding in a dumpster.

The trial continues.

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