May 15, 2008 4:53 pm US/Eastern
Inmate Talked Of Killing 2 Months Before Murder
BEL AIR, Md. (AP) ―
A forensic psychiatrist testified for the defense Thursday that a Maryland prison inmate accused of strangling another aboard a prison bus had told him two months earlier that his demons would make him kill unless he got psychiatric treatment.
Dr. Neil Blumberg said Kevin G. Johns, who had by then been convicted of one murder and was facing trial for another, "was absolutely convinced that if he didn't get help that he was going to do the same thing again. And I absolutely believed him."
Blumberg, testifying on the seventh day of the capital murder trial, was the last of five psychiatrists or psychologists called on Johns' behalf at the trial in Harford County Circuit Court.
The defense rested Thursday afternoon after Johns declined to testify and the state called the psychiatrist in rebuttal.
The trial has recessed until Tuesday.
Johns has pleaded innocent and not criminally responsible by reason of insanity to the charge of first-degree murder in the Feb. 2, 2005, slaying of 20-year-old Philip Parker Jr.
Defense lawyers don't dispute that Johns killed Parker aboard a bus carrying 36 inmates back to Baltimore just hours after a judge in Hagerstown had sentenced Johns to life without parole for murdering Armad Cloude, his cellmate at the Maryland Correctional Training Center. Johns had told the judge at the sentencing that unless he was sent to the Patuxent Institution for psychiatric care, he believed he would kill again.
Blumberg, who had recommended Patuxent, testified that Johns had told him during a rambling, psychotic conversation on Dec. 2, 2004, that a demonic male voice sometimes commanded him to hurt and kill people. Reading from his report of the session, Blumberg quoted Johns saying, "I know I'll be a serial killer if I'm set free. I've got a fetish for blood."
Blumberg said there is no indication in court transcripts that his report on the session ever reached the judge who sentenced Johns for Cloude's murder. The case was resolved with a plea bargain that took off the table both the death penalty and Johns' insanity plea.
Parker testified in Johns' defense at the sentencing hearing.
Blumberg testified Thursday that in his opinion, Johns was not criminally responsible for Parker's death because he "lacked a substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law."
After Parker's death, doctors at the state's maximum-security, forensic psychiatric hospital concluded that Johns was sane and diagnosed him as "malingering," or faking psychotic symptoms.
Harford County Circuit Judge Emory A. Plitt Jr. must decide whether Johns is guilty and, if so, whether he was responsible for his actions. If he is found criminally responsible, the trial would then continue to a death penalty phase.
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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