A former Vancouver chiropractor who recently moved to Florida with his family has been charged with attempted murder after police say he stabbed two children in his care while they were asleep in bed.
Trevor Hooper Kilian, 47, was arrested in Naples, Fla., on Sept. 15 after a woman called police to report the attack, according to an arrest report from the Collier County Sheriff’s Office.
She told officers that Kilian had got out of bed a little after 10 p.m. and minutes later she heard the children screaming, according to the arrest report.
It adds that she allegedly found Kilian standing in the hall with a knife in his hand, saying, “I stabbed them, I stabbed them. What have I done?”
One of the children had stab wounds in his back and the other was stabbed in the chest, the report said. Both had collapsed lungs and had to be airlifted to hospital, but were in stable condition at the time of the arrest report.
Police say Kilian was found with “severe self-inflicted lacerations” on both arms and was taken to hospital. He is facing two charges of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated child abuse.
The arrest report does not identify the relationship between Kilian and the woman who called police and the victims.
Family had financial trouble, opposed vaccine mandates
Kilian previously worked as a chiropractor in downtown Vancouver, but according to the College of Chiropractors of B.C., his licence expired in August after two decades of practice in this province.
He was one of dozens of B.C. chiropractors who signed a pseudolegal “notice of liability” in November 2021, threatening legal action against college board members in case of a vaccination mandate.
His wife Lauren posted in the Facebook group “Conservative Canadians in Florida” in January, saying their family had purchased a new clinic in Naples — a city on the Gulf of Mexico around 150 kilometres west of Miami — and were looking to connect with “like-minded people.”
She also gave an interview with the online publication Healthy Debate in February explaining the move to Florida. She said Kilian’s chiropractic business had struggled in Vancouver because of COVID-19 restrictions and they could no longer stand the pressure to be vaccinated in Canada.
“This has pulled my family apart,” she said. “I really miss my friends back home. … But everywhere I go here, people think like us.”
According to the arrest report from Naples, the unidentified woman officers interviewed at the scene said the family had recently moved from Canada because of financial hardships.
The report adds that Kilian had been a regular user of synthetic cannabis up until about two weeks before the attack, but when he stopped he began acting strangely and having manic episodes.
The witness told police Kilian had no history of violence against her or the children, and that everything had seemed fine on the night of the stabbing.
After she found the children wounded in their bedroom, the report says, she barricaded herself inside and called police.
Kilian is set to be arraigned in a Collier County courtroom on Oct. 10.
