Was the suspect in a racially motivated stabbing crazy? A Columbus jury must decide

Psychologists expressed opposing views Thursday during the jury trial of a Black man who stabbed a white store clerk in an unprovoked assault here in 2020.

As the trial draws to a close, a Columbus jury will have to decide whether the defendant suffered delusional duress when he attacked an AutoZone store employee.

Jayvon Rayshawn Hatchett's attorney argued his client was innocent by reason of insanity and was driven by anger and paranoia to stab worker Michael Hunt seven times at the AutoZone at 950 32nd St., on August 25, 2020.

Hatchett then told police he attacked the first white person he saw after watching videos related to the police shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

To bolster Hatchett's claims, public defender Steve Craft asked forensic psychologist Christina Gliser to evaluate his client and call her to testify about her findings.

Gliser said she discovered that Hatchett suffered from schizoaffective disorder linked to bipolar depression and that she had been acting under paranoid delusions regarding conspiracy theories involving Freemasons and selves. -called “illuminati”, believing they were targeting black men.

She said she interviewed Hatchett and his family, and she listed a series of hardships he endured:

• He was the eldest of seven children who grew up in a poor neighborhood rife with drugs and violence.

• He was abused as a child by an alcoholic father who put out cigarettes in his nose.

• He was sexually assaulted by a cousin for two years.

• His mother dated another abusive man when Hatchett was 12 or 13, and he witnessed more domestic violence.

• He contracted a sexually transmitted disease when he was 17 or 18 and was treated twice.

• While living with a grandmother in Mâcon, in 2018, he believed she was trying to poison him with tapeworms and began eating garlic daily.

• He also began staying up all night, talking to himself, and trying to break into homes during the day.

• He did not receive any mental health treatment until he was jailed during Hunt's attack.

She testified that Hatchett's viewing of violent videos, combined with his belief in conspiracies, triggered the delusion that caused him to attack Hunt.

The fact that Hatchett was coherent enough to walk into AutoZone and tell Hunt that his car was overheating, to pull Hunt close to him before stabbing Hunt from behind, was not proof that he was sane , she said: “Mental ill people do useful things all the time. time,” she said.

Likewise, the fact that Hatchett then ran home, washed the knife and burned his clothes did not prove he was acting rationally out of a conscience of guilt, she said. He considered burning his clothes a “blood sacrifice,” consistent with the delusion he suffered from, she said.

In cross-examining Gliser, District Attorney Stacey Jackson elicited testimony that she found nothing to prove Hatchett had ever been diagnosed or treated for mental illness before the stabbing.

Jackson maintains that Hatchett began claiming he was suffering from delusions only after the assault in order to justify his insanity defense.

State psychologist disagrees

Jackson called psychologist John Parmer to counter Gliser's testimony.

Parmer said Hatchett exaggerated the symptoms, saying he saw horns protruding from Hunt's head during the attack, and that he saw horns on the heads of other white men, including Hunt's. By sea.

Hatchett's claims that he exhibited symptoms of mental illness became increasingly detailed and ostentatious, after his arrest, dating back to his childhood, when he reported seeing ghosts and other illusions, Palmer testified .

The psychologist concluded that Hatchett was presenting a layman's view of what his alleged illness should look like.

Parmer said Hatchett knew stabbing Hunt was wrong and was not crazy at the time.

Neither Jackson nor Craft presented additional evidence Thursday, as they prepared to present closing arguments this afternoon.

Other expenses

Charged with aggravated assault and using a knife to commit a felony, Hatchett faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted on both counts.

But he still has a pending murder case, involving the subsequent death of a white cellmate in the Muscogee County jail, which authorities also say was racially motivated.

Hatchett, who was 19 at the time, is accused of murdering Eddie Nelson Jr., 39, the following September 5, when a corrections officer saw Hatchett kneeling on Nelson with his hands around Nelson's neck.

Nelson could not be revived and was pronounced dead by strangulation around 2:30 a.m., authorities said.

Hatchett faces life in prison if convicted of murder.

Nelson's death resulted in a federal lawsuit against the city government, as his family claimed that jail employees were negligent in allowing Hatchett to be housed with white inmates. The suit claims that prison staff were “deliberately indifferent” to the risk Hatchett posed, in violation of the 14th Amendment.

The lawsuit is currently on appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.