Doctors called by prosecutors challange the defense's contention that the man who fatally shot a Providence detective was mentally ill.

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, June 23, 2006

BY CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Psychiatrists sparred over the state of Esteban Carpio's mind yesterday, the last day of testimony in the murder trial that began two weeks ago.

The lawyers will give closing arguments on Monday.

Carpio is accused of stabbing an 84-year-old Providence woman and then killing Detective Sgt. James L. Allen on April 16, 2005, at the police station as the detective questioned him about the stabbing.

The day was filled with testimony from two witnesses who were called by prosecutor Paul F. Daly Jr. to rebut the insanity defense put forth by the defense team.

The doctors said that 27-year-old Carpio did not suffer from a mental illness. One went further, saying Carpio faked it. Carpio's lawyer, Robert L. Sheketoff, said the doctors ignored any evidence that pointed to a mental illness.

Sheketoff focused much of his questioning on the court records of the doctors, both of whom have testified extensively in criminal cases.

David Faust, a University of Rhode Island professor and former director of psychology at Rhode Island Hospital, said that an expert hired by the defense lawyer incorrectly scored and misinterpreted a psychological test of 500 true/false questions that Carpio filled out.

Faust said Dr. Paul A. Spiers used outdated texts to interpret the results. According to Faust's reading of the test results, the scores indicated that Carpio grossly exaggerated his mental state. The test is imbedded with subtle questions meant to distinguish genuine psychotics from fakers, and Carpio failed.

Carpio's score "was in a range called Unacceptable," Faust said.

Carpio looked on attentively, blinking often. He wore the same blue button-down shirt and khaki pants that he has worn throughout the trial.

His lawyer, Sheketoff asked Faust why he hadn't revealed his analysis earlier. Carpio could have been retested, the lawyer said.

Sheketoff also asked Faust why he never wrote a report about his findings, a report that the defense team could have analyzed and shown to experts.

"You know there is a strategic advantage to not write a report, don't you?" Sheketoff asked.

"I'm sure there is," Faust said.

Faust co-authored "Coping With Psychiatric and Psychological Testimony," which Sheketoff described as a handbook for lawyers on how to attack expert witnesses.

"You are a professional professional witness," Sheketoff said.

Faust said he only testifies three or four times a year, and his testimony in the Carpio case is pro bono, he said.

Dr. Martin Kelly, a Harvard University professor and psychiatrist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, acknowledged that he has testified between 300 and 400 times in his 40-year career, mostly for the prosecution. Kelly said he is being paid for his time.

An astounding volume of material documented Carpio's state of mind, Kelly said, starting with Carpio's visits to doctors before the shooting, to the audiotaped interviews after the incident and the videotapes of Carpio in a holding cell in the police headquarters. Kelly said he also interviewed the nurses who cared for Carpio at Rhode Island Hospital after his arrest.

Kelly said he didn't find anything that convinced him that Carpio suffered from a mental illness or mental defect, nothing that diminished Carpio's ability to distinguish right from wrong or his ability to make his own decisions.

Carpio spoke of hearing voices, but nobody observed him reacting to the voices, Kelly said.

In the weeks before the shooting, Carpio's mother called an ambulance to take Carpio to Faulkner Hospital in Boston for a psychiatric evaluation, and his girlfriend took him to Rhode Island hospital because his behavior was bizarre. Kelly said the clinicians who evaluated him at Faulkner, Rhode Island Hospital and the Providence Center attributed his state to stress and substance abuse.

When detectives picked Carpio up for questioning on April 16, Kelly said Carpio "was appropriately concerned. He was cooperative with police. He was not hearing voices. He was calm."

A year after the shooting, Kelly interviewed Carpio twice. Carpio was cogent, calm and his thoughts were organized, he said. Carpio revealed that he had written a letter to Oprah Winfrey accusing Allen of trying to extort information from him in exchange for drugs.

While Kelly didn't find him credible, he didn't find him mentally ill, either.

Under questioning from the defense lawyer, the psychiatrist confirmed that a classic example of psychotic behavior that Kelly often recounts in courtrooms is a person who hears voices and acts on those commands.

Sheketoff asked why Kelly disregarded the reports that Carpio was hearing voices and evidence that Carpio ate his clothing, toothbrush and bed clothes while imprisoned at the Adult Correctional Institutions.

Why didn't the doctor interview Carpio's mother or girlfriend who said he was hearing voices, Sheketoff asked. Or if he was looking for more independent sources, why didn't he interview Jean Petrozzielo, the representative from escort service Florida Flirts who met Carpio during an interview with his girlfriend. Petrozzielo remarked in a police report that Carpio was "off the wall." And why didn't Kelly interview Harmony Boyce, who was the first person to see Carpio after he shot Allen?

Boyce lives in an apartment above AS220, an arts cooperative that provides housing for artists, on Empire Street. Carpio knows Boyce and went to her apartment after he jumped out of the third floor of the Public Safety Complex.

In a police statement, Boyce said Carpio was agitated and kept repeating a vulgar verse from a rap song.

Kelly said it's not unusual for someone to repeat song lyrics when they are nervous or agitated, or for entertainment.

"What if someone says it over and over again to ward off voices in their head?" Sheketoff asked.

Kelly didn't interview Corey B. Morris, the detention officer who monitored Carpio in the holding cell at the Providence police station after Carpio was released from the hospital.

Carpio was banging his head against the rubber walls of the cell and Morris told him to stop.

According to a report written by Morris, Carpio said "Can you please put a bullet in my head? Can you give me some poison to drink so I can kill myself? I know that I killed a cop, but it's not my fault."

Sheketoff said Carpio told the jailer that he was hearing voices and the devil was in him.

"When the devil leaves my body, he's going to enter your body," Carpio told Morris.

Morris, who wrote that he was superstitious, was bothered by the exchange and walked away. Kelly said the jailer's reaction surprised him.

The trial resumes Monday.

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