SALON

Friday, May 18, 2012 4:45 PM UTC

Experts: Insanity defense doesn’t fit in stabbings

By

Topics: From the Wires,

FLINT, Mich. (AP) — Mental health experts who interviewed a Michigan serial stabbings suspect testified Friday that he revealed a pattern of planning, control and lack of empathy for his alleged victims — key factors that would make him criminally responsible and likely douse any insanity defense.

Elias Abuelazam disclosed that he tried to flee to Israel, his native country, in August 2010 because he didn’t want to get captured, psychologist Charles Clark told jurors.

“A person who cannot appreciate what they’re doing is wrong would not be aware or concerned about being caught,” said Clark, who met with Abuelazam at the Genesee County jail and who was one of two mental health experts called to testify Friday by prosecutors.

Abuelazam, 35, is on trial for murder in the death of Arnold Minor on a street near downtown Flint. Minor was one of five people fatally stabbed two summers ago, 60 miles north of Detroit. Abuelazam is charged with murder in three of those deaths and with attempted murder in attacks on seven other people, including one in Toledo, Ohio.

The evidence is strong: Police said Minor’s DNA was in blood found in Abuelazam’s Chevy Blazer and on his jeans and shoes. Defense attorneys are relying on an insanity defense. A psychiatrist, Dr. Norman Miller, testified Thursday that Abuelazam is paranoid schizophrenic who stabbed people while under the spell of “evil forces” and can’t be held responsible.

Prosecutors have rebutted Miller’s opinion with their own experts who said Abuelazam was not mentally ill in 2010. Clark noted that Minor and other victims were stabbed after midnight with no witnesses around.

If Abuelazam were truly ill, Clark said, he would have had trouble restraining himself at other times of the day.

“None of these were impulsive,” Clark testified. “He would drive around until he found the likely person and likely spot. He was able to choose time, place and manner without being compelled to do it by mental illness.”

Earlier Friday, another psychologist, Thomas Brewer, said Abuelazam showed no empathy about his victims during jail interviews.

“I’ve interviewed people who have killed other people. … Typically it’s a very painful experience to realize, ‘I did it.’ With Mr. Abuelazam that was never the case,” Brewer told the jury.

Closing arguments are expected to take place Tuesday.

More Ed White.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations