Criminally Responsible

Doctors for the defense and prosecution yesterday gave vastly different, but hardly surprising, views of the mind of Ruthann Aron.A psychiatrist hired by Aron said that taped conversations between his patient and a phony hit man prove she was mentally ill and "out in the ozone" at the time of her arrest last summer.Dr. Michael Spodak became the second medical witness for the defense to testify that Aron, 55, was not criminally responsible when she took out contracts on the lives of her husband and another man.But after the defense rested its case, a state psychologist testified that while Aron suffered from several mental disorders, she was criminally responsible for her actions.

The man who stabbed the daughter of state Sen. Arthur Dorman 16 times in February did not know right from wrong at the time, making him guilty of the crime but not criminally responsible, a Howard County circuit judge ruled yesterday.Gary C. Moncarz was found guilty of murdering Barbara Susan Dorman, his girlfriend of about a year, but Judge Dennis M. Sweeney ruled that Moncarz suffers from a severe mental illness that prevented him from understanding his actions.Moncarz, 42, a former accountant, was remanded to the custody of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene until he is deemed no longer a danger to society or to himself.

The man who stabbed the daughter of state Sen. Arthur Dorman 16 times in February did not know right from wrong at the time, making him guilty of the crime but not criminally responsible, a Howard County circuit judge ruled yesterday.Gary C. Moncarz was found guilty of murdering Barbara Susan Dorman -- his girlfriend of about one year -- but Judge Dennis M. Sweeney ruled that Moncarz suffered from a severe mental illness that prevented him from understanding his actions.Moncarz, a 42-year-old former accountant, was remanded to the custody of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene until he is deemed no longer a danger to society or to himself.

A 67-year-old Hampstead man who was held not criminally responsible in a 1989 assault on his family -- an attack that occurred five years before the man's wife was stabbed to death by the couple's 17-year-old son -- must continue receiving psychiatric care for at least another five years, a Carroll County Circuit Court judge ordered yesterday.Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr. heard reports from psychiatrists testifying for and against dropping the conditions of release imposed on Eugene Marshall Fick of the 4000 block of Farm Woods Lane.

A Hampstead 17-year-old accused of fatally stabbing his mother last year cannot be found criminally responsible for the slaying, state psychiatrists have determined.Timothy Kevin Fick, who has been confined to the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center since shortly after his arrest on first-degree murder charges last Aug. 26, was insane at the time his mother was killed, the psychiatrists said, according to Carroll prosecutors.The finding means that the teen-ager, who has pleaded not guilty and not criminally responsible, cannot be confined in a state prison if he is convicted of murdering his mother, Assistant State's Attorney Theresa M. Adams said.

A Howard Circuit judge has ordered a 24-year-old Columbia man to undergo a psychiatric evaluation before standing trial on charges that he tried to kill his parents by setting their house on fire last November.Judge Raymond Kane Jr. ordered the evaluation Tuesday after the attorney for Joseph Michael Lindenberg filed a plea of not criminally responsible by reason of insanity for the Nov. 11 blaze.The evaluation, requested by the prosecution, will be done at the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup.

Armed with letters from the jury that said he was guilty of -- but not responsible for -- the deaths of his mother and her boyfriend two years ago, Jason Aaron DeLong today will ask a judge for a new trial.A Carroll Circuit Court jury found DeLong in September not criminally responsible for the deaths of Cathryn Brace Farrar and George William Wahl, but guilty and responsible for conspiracy in their murders.He was sentenced to life in prison, but before he could begin to serve that sentence he was committed to the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center.

A man who has a 30-year history of sexual assaults pleaded guilty but not criminally responsible by reason of insanity yesterday for an assault on a Guilford woman that was thwarted by three bystanders last August.Thurman Alexander Moore, 47, of Guilford, entered into a plea agreement in Howard Circuit Court for a first-degree sexual offense, third-degree sexual offense and a daytime housebreaking charge for the Aug. 31 incident.Moore, of the 9400 block of Guilford Road, was released from prison two weeks before the assault after serving most of a 25-year sentence for kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old Columbia girl in 1974, according to court and state parole records.

A Washington man has been found guilty, but not criminally responsible by reason of insanity, of a North Laurel carjacking that led to a high-speed chase through three states in March 1993.A Howard Circuit Court jury deliberated about five hours before finding Christopher William Bradley guilty of six charges Wednesday night for forcing his way into the car of a Baltimore architect and fleeing to New Jersey.The jury found Bradley, 22, guilty of robbery, assault, battery, unauthorized use of a vehicle and two counts of theft.

The abuse of Jason Aaron DeLong by his mother began before he was born, a psychiatric social worker testified yesterday.Mr. DeLong, 19, and Sara Citroni, 18, were charged in the July 29, 1993, stabbing deaths of his mother, Cathryn Brace Farrar, and her boyfriend, George William Wahl, in Westminster. Citroni, who dated Mr. DeLong for a week before the slayings, pleaded guilty to murder in July.Mr. DeLong, on trial on first-degree murder charges, has pleaded innocent and not criminally responsible.

Less than a year ago, a beautiful and wonderful citizen by all accounts, Aysha Ring, was viciously murdered by David Briggs - stabbed to death while standing in line at a convenience store. The perpetrator has been found not criminally responsible and is committed to the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup. He will serve no jail time and will be re-evaluated in a year for possible release, although prosecutor S. Ann Brobst told this writer that her office will ensure that does not occur.

City prosecutors announced yesterday that they will seek at a minimum a life sentence without the possibility of a parole for the Montgomery County man charged with drowning his three children in the bathtub of an Inner Harbor hotel during a custody battle with his estranged wife. Mark Castillo, 41, has pleaded not criminally responsible to the three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Anthony, 6; Austin, 4; and Athena, 2. Not criminally responsible is the equivalent of an insanity plea in other states.

The Montgomery County man charged with drowning his three children in a Baltimore hotel bathtub during a custody battle with his estranged wife pleaded not criminally responsible to the charges during a brief hearing yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court. Mark Castillo, 41, has confessed to the killings, according to court documents. He is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Anthony, 6; Austin, 4; and Athena, 2. Their bodies were found March 30 after police said Castillo called the front desk from his room in the Marriott hotel in the Inner Harbor.

A man charged with killing an off-duty city police officer this year is seeking to change his plea from "not guilty" to "not criminally responsible," court documents show. With the request to change his plea comes a trial delay. Yesterday, the Baltimore Circuit Court trial for Brandon Grimes was postponed from Sept. 11 to Nov. 2. Grimes is a 22-year-old with a long arrest record who is accused of fatally shooting Detective Troy Lamont Chesley Sr. in what might have been a robbery attempt.

A woman who hoarded more than 100 dogs in two homes she owned in Harford County was sent by a judge to a psychiatric hospital yesterday after being found not criminally responsible for animal cruelty. Donna Lee Bell was charged with 118 counts of animal cruelty after authorities in May 2006 found about 100 dogs, dozens of which were dead, and some cats in the two Whiteford homes without food, water and ventilation. Animal feces covered the floor -- up to 3 feet in some areas -- and decaying carcasses laid throughout the homes.

A Northwest Baltimore man was convicted yesterday of first-degree murder for beating and then setting fire to a 43-year-old intoxicated man who in September 2003 had apparently stumbled into the wrong back yard. But Dwayne Gibson, 20, has pleaded not criminally responsible in the death of Wayne Rideout, so today a city circuit judge will hold a hearing to determine whether any psychological ailments made Gibson incapable of understanding the crime. Assistant State's Attorney Wesley Adams said yesterday during his closing argument that Rideout perhaps had been trying to visit his pastor - one house over - when Gibson, who had been sleeping on the back porch of his grandmother's Grantley Avenue home, attacked him with a crowbar, doused him with gasoline and set him ablaze.

A 59-year-old Shady Side woman was found guilty yesterday of first-degree murder for using a rifle to beat and shoot her husband to death over her mounting credit card debt. It took an Anne Arundel County jury two hours to convict Terry Harriet Pierce Eslin of the most serious charge against her - one that could carry a possible life sentence without the possibility of parole. A sentencing hearing has not been scheduled. Eslin and her lawyer have maintained that she suffered from battered wife syndrome, was temporarily insane during the attack and therefore is not criminally responsible for killing her fourth husband, Richard P. Eslin, 66, last year.

A 59-year-old Shady Side woman was found guilty yesterday of first-degree murder for using a rifle to beat and shoot her husband to death over her mounting credit card debt. It took an Anne Arundel County jury two hours to convict Terry Harriet Pierce Eslin of the most serious charge against her - one that could carry a possible life sentence without the possibility of parole. After the verdict, Eslin's house-arrest status was revoked, and she was taken to jail to await sentencing. A hearing has not been scheduled.

A colleague of reputed cult leader Scott Caruthers entered a guilty plea yesterday to a charge of conspiring to murder one of the group's business associates. David S. Pearl, 48, who has been jailed since his arrest in October 2001, will continue to pursue a plea that he is not criminally responsible, according to his attorney. Carroll Circuit Judge Michael M. Galloway said yesterday that he would not sentence Pearl until receiving a psychiatric report from Springfield Hospital Center, where staff doctors examined Pearl a few weeks ago. Caruthers, an author and inventor who has been described as the space-alien leader of a Westminster-based cult, is awaiting trial on similar charges and also is undergoing psychiatric evaluations to determine whether he would be held criminally responsible.

SALISBURY -- Psychiatric experts and other witnesses presented radically different portraits yesterday of Francis Mario Zito, an Eastern Shore man accused of killing two lawmen last year in a Queen Anne's County trailer park. Defense attorneys rested their case with testimony from a retired psychiatric nurse who befriended Zito nearly 20 years ago in his native Pennsylvania and yesterday described him as incoherent. A neurologist hired by Zito's public defenders told jurors in the Wicomico County courtroom, where the case was moved because of pretrial publicity, that he believes Zito's lifelong history of severe mental illness has been worsened by brain damage that is either genetic or was suffered before he was born.