Have you ever heard of Jamie Fuller?
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Jamie Fuller, who was sixteen years old at the time of the incident, brutally killed his fourteen-year-old girlfriend on Friday, August 23, 1991. At trial it was not disputed that Jamie Fuller had killed the victim. The principal focus of the evidence offered at trial, particularly the evidence regarding his statements and actions in the days before and after the killing, was directed to the defendant's frame of mind and his responsibility for his actions.
The defendant and the victim had had an intense and troubled romantic relationship for two years preceding the killing. In the last year each had dated other people, and this increased the tension between them. Fuller spoke several times of killing the victim, to her and to others. In the months before the killing, he had discussed with his friends ways for the victim to procure an abortion without her having to obtain parental consent, having someone beat Amy so as to cause a miscarriage, or having her killed. The day before the killing the victim had taken a trip to Gloucester with two girls and two boys. When the defendant learned about this he is reported to have said, "I'm getting sick of this. I swear I'm going to kill her. . . . This shit's got to stop. . . . She won't be around to go out with anyone any more. . . . I'm going to fucking kill her." The next morning he called her repeatedly and insisted that she come to his house to meet him. On the day of the killing, before she arrived, the defendant met Dominic Sciola and later Mark DeMeule. Sciola testified that the defendant said he was going to kill the victim and that he invited Sciola to come along. He later told Mark DeMeule the same thing. When DeMeule taunted him that he "didn't have the balls to do" it, the defendant replied, "You'll see."
The defendant and his two friends met the victim. They were joined by Michael Maillet and briefly by Scott Ward. This group walked out of the defendant's house and along a path into a field. The defendant and the victim separated from the others. The others heard screams, and when the defendant rejoined them he said, "It's done." He was bloody and had "a smirk on his face." He showed the others his knife and said it had broken during the attack. He also said to DeMeule, "The bitch shouldn't have messed with me." DeMeule testified that as the group walked away from the scene Fuller described how he had killed the victim. Fuller reported to the group that "he placed his hand over her mouth and said, `I love you,' and then stabbed her in the stomach and then got behind her and pushed [so that] he could feel the point [of the knife] hit his stomach. Then he . . . stabbed her in the back and she had tried to pull away and she bit . . . his hand and then she screamed. . . . [S]he tried to run and he grabbed her by her hair and pulled her back and covered her mouth again and then cut her throat. . . . When she was on the ground . . . she kept saying, `I love you, Jamie,' and she was gargling on her own blood and he said it pissed him off so he stomped on her head."
There was further testimony about Fuller's conduct after the killing. At Sciola's house he washed the blood off his arms, drank red Kool-Aid because it was "right for the occasion," took Maillet to see the body, and then warned his companions that they would "be next" if they "were to say anything." Later that day, Fuller led his friends in the task of disposing of the victim's body. They obtained two trash bags, two cinder blocks, and lobster line (which would not fray in the water), and he and Maillet threw the weighted body into Shoe Pond. Thereafter, he denied knowing the vic tim's whereabouts to the police and to his friends and joined in searching for her. Finally, on August 28, five days after the killing, Maillet led the police to the victim's body, and Fuller was arrested. At the time of his arrest, he "put on a half-smile smirk and began to chuckle." During questioning Fuller was calm and accused his friends of killing her.
At trial, the defense made a convincing showing -- principally through cross-examination of the Commonwealth's witnesses -- that for some time Fuller had been using steroids. He had been small and shy, but one and one-half years prior to the killing he grew quickly and gained some thirty pounds. He began to drink "all the time" and became quarrelsome and aggressive. There was testimony from several witnesses that they had seen him buying what they thought to be steroids and that they had seen him with pills, vials, and hypodermic needles. One witness testified that she had provided Fuller at his request with a hypodermic needle. There was also testimony that his buttocks were sore "[b]ecause of the needle."
Three experts -- two psychiatrists and a clinical psychologist -- testified on Fuller's behalf. Dr. John Thomas Grisso, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts, had been appointed by the Department of Youth Services to perform a court-ordered evaluation of Fuller. Fuller had told Grisso about using alcohol and steroids since the age of fourteen years. Based, among other things, on early childhood factors, including the neglect Jamie Fuller had suffered as a child, the abandonment of the family by his father, and his mother's alcoholism and depression, Dr. Grisso testified that Fuller suffered from dysthymia, "a long term, continual lower-level depression." Together with his alcohol consumption this "substantially impaired his ability to appreciate the wrongfulness" of his conduct. Dr. Grisso disclaimed any opinion regarding the effects of steroid use on Fuller's mood, behavior, or mental capacity. On cross-examination, Dr. Grisso conceded that he did not have an opinion "as to whether . . . by reason of mental disease or defect [the defendant] lacked the substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of killing [the victim]." Ultimately, Dr. Grisso testified that Fuller's mental disease or defect substantially impaired his ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct, but that Fuller was capable of forming the specific intent to kill.
Dr. Harrison Pope, a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, provided the principal testimony regarding Fuller's anabolic steroid use. His physical examination of Fuller confirmed the conclusion, suggested by Fuller's rapid weight gain, that Fuller had been using steroids. He described the psychiatric effects of steroid use and of what he called steroid intoxication. Steroids may cause increased aggression, a brooding irritability, and while they act as an antidepressant, discontinuing their use may result in a rebound depression. He also opined that Fuller was suffering from alcohol dependence and major depressive illness. Based on Fuller's statement to him that he had last taken steroids forty-eight hours before the killing, Dr. Pope stated that "particularly because of [the defendant's] intoxication with the steroids, plus an additional component contributed by the alcohol and the depressive illness, [the defendant was] rendered in a state where he was overwhelmed by a constant obsessional, irritable, jealous rage that he could not counteract in his mind, that he could not say no to, if you wish." This was the basis of his conclusion that Fuller "in fact did lack substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law."
Dr. Marc A. Whaley, a psychiatrist who had performed more than 500 forensic evaluations, testified that at the time of the killing Fuller was suffering from alcohol dependency and dysthymia, a depressive illness which he characterized as a chronic feeling of low self-esteem and self-hatred. Dr. Whaley testified that in his opinion Fuller "was indeed suffering from a mental disease that substantially impaired his capacity to weigh the pros and cons of carrying out his intended acts . . . [and] impaired . . . his capacity to fully appreciate the wrongful magnitude of [his] misconduct." On cross-examination, however, Dr. Whaley stated that "my opinion would be that he did not lack the substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or control his conduct by reason of mental disease or defect."
The Commonwealth's rebuttal witness, Dr. Martin Kelly, a psychiatrist on the teaching staff of Brigham and Women's Hospital and a forensic psychiatrist, testified that in his opinion, on the basis of his review of the record and of the expert testimony in the case, Fuller did not suffer from major depression, which he characterized as a mental disease or defect, and that while Fuller abused alcohol he did not suffer from alcohol dependence. Dr. Kelly further testified that based on Fuller's actions on the day of the killing, Fuller "did not describe symptoms . . . [consistent with what happens] when you take steroids. . . . I found no symptoms of either manic symptoms or depressive symptoms that might be related to steroid use . . . ."
Subject: Guys who kill their girlfriends/wives/lovers 
Tue Jul 21, 2015 1:52 am