May 06, 2008|By Jennifer McMenamin | Jennifer McMenamin,Sun reporter
Offering a detailed account of Johns' medical and mental health problems from birth, he said his client suffered fetal alcohol syndrome, lead paint poisoning and serious child abuse. Johns was first removed from his family's home at the age of 6 and was mostly in the custody of the state from then on.
Johns first reported experiencing hallucinations and hearing voices at the age of 8, Trainor said. He has variously been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome, major depression, a dissociative disorder and bipolar disorder.
According to notes from Johns' 1998 admission to one psychiatric facility at the age of 15, doctors found him to be depressive, suicidal, homicidal, delusional and suffering from auditory and visual hallucinations, Trainor told the judge.
The trial is expected to include details of the grisly killing from prisoners who were aboard the bus as it rumbled in the dark from Hagerstown to Baltimore as well as from prison officials and investigators assigned to the case.
Two prison officials assigned to Supermax testified yesterday that they saw Johns regurgitating razor blades in a holding cell after being taken off the bus the morning of Parker's death. Several prison employees also testified that Johns' restraints were improperly secured that morning.
A waist chain "should be secure enough so that it's hard for you to scratch your nose," testified Dwight P. Johnson, the assistant warden of Supermax. "His waist chain was so loose that his hands were out like mine. ... So loose that as small as Mr. Johns was at the time, he could have stepped out of it."
jennifer.mcmenamin@baltsun.com
