3.Julie Dorney — Direct/Cross/Redirect

JULIE DORNEY: Good morning.

JULIE DORNEY: My name is Julie Rand Dorney, D-O-R-N-E-Y. I am a forensic psychiatrist. And my educational history is I attended the University of Arkansas and graduated from U of A in 1985 with a degree in chemistry. I went to medical school at the University of Arkansas and graduated in 1989. And I completed general psychiatric residency training at Emery in 1993 and formal forensic in 1995 at Emery. And since that time, I've been on faculty at Emery as Assistant Professor. Currently, an Adjunct Associate Professor and I'm the Assistant Director of Forensic Training at Emery.

JULIE DORNEY: The majority of what I do now is actually treat patients. For many years, I actually worked as one of the lead evaluators on the forensic unit for patients who were found incompetent to stand trial or to assess them for criminal responsibility, insanity. I left the forensic unit in 2008, and for the last 10 years I've worked in private practice.

JULIE DORNEY: That's correct. It's Georgia Regional Hospital. The large forensic unit is in Atlanta, but there are multiple forensic units across the state.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes, I have. I've testified approximately 150 times, many more times for the Prosecution than for the Defense.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Approximately 150 times.

JULIE DORNEY: I think you contacted my office in July of 2017 to ask me if I would consider evaluating a Defendant in South Carolina.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Approximately $400 per hour. I've not sent an invoice for this case yet, but I will after it's over. I intend to adjust off a significant portion for Government cases.

JULIE DORNEY: Correct, yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. So it's my opinion that related to the death of Nahtahn that Mr. Jones did not recognize that the legal wrongfulness of what he was doing regarding Nahtahn's behavior and his punishment of Nahtahn. And regarding the deaths of the other four children, it's my opinion that he did not have the ability or capacity to distinguish moral right from moral wrong. He was able to distinguish legal right from legal wrong with that particular set of deaths.

JULIE DORNEY: Well, this is a very -- I'm sorry, I cut you off.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes, I did. Actually -- I did. You want to show it or --

JULIE DORNEY: Absolutely. I met with Tim on eight different occasions from the summer of 2017. And the last time I met with him was actually on May 4th of this year, so it was earlier this month. That was after I submitted the report. I went back over to Lexington County jail and spent about five hours with him. So I spent, you know, 18, 19 hours with him. I mainly wanted to see how he was doing. There was some speculation that his symptoms were worsening in the Spring and I did go spend time with him. I actually assessed him for competency to stand trial a few weeks ago to make sure he was ready to go to court and he was. So I don't think there was any issue on competency.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. I got extensive records from your office, from Deborah Grey and then from other clinicians in your office. And then I was able to take that information and meet with Mr. Jones about it and corroborate that with him. He actually knew a lot of that information. He was very organized in his thinking with me when he was treated. He couldn't remember dates very well, but we were able to pull the information and actually corroborate that with his history.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Absolutely. I think as a child, he -- the first few years, his mother left before he was three, I think. So the first few years are very important as it relates to anxiety developing, attachment problems and relationships. She was -- she neglected him. She would leave him in cold bath water. She refused to feed him. She didn't want a fat baby. She would give him laxatives. So very inappropriate, abusive neglect. And I think that can affect development in a way, psychologically, obviously, neurologically, but, also, too, just in relationships and attachment.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. That is relevant in that -- if you heard the psychologist talk about his testing, he had some disinhibitions and memory issues with testing. And, also, executive functioning, which is planning, sequencing, kind of thinking ahead, basically, which I think is -- and we can get into that in a few minutes --

JULIE DORNEY: I'm sorry. Stop me and tell me if I speed up again.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. I was referring to Dr. Brawley's evaluation and psychological testing report.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes, I think she did neuropsychological testing.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: It's the same report, actually. It's -- but she does administer the RBANS, the repeatable battery for the assessment of neuropsychological status, which is neuropsychological testing.

JULIE DORNEY: I'm assuming that's what she's tracking, she's assessing.

JULIE DORNEY: I think it's talking more about memory, which I do refer to up there. His decision making, memory, abstract thinking.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: For that, yes. It was memory malingering.

JULIE DORNEY: Not behavioral, yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes, more cognitive. So I think you're asking the right thing.

JULIE DORNEY: I don't want to confuse the jury, so I'm happy to reframe it in some way.

JULIE DORNEY: I think I can sort that out, if that's okay.

JULIE DORNEY: I think that what he's saying is that this particular report is more cognitive based --

JULIE DORNEY: -- as far as what she assessed. And I've also included some behavioral changes in the slide, which are not in this report. That came more from Dr. Snyder, so.

JULIE DORNEY: I'm confused. I think that report is one component, obviously, of information that I had to look at his brain injury and that's the cognitive.

JULIE DORNEY: Right.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes --

JULIE DORNEY: I did not mean to confuse the jury. I can certainly separate that out.

JULIE DORNEY: Correct.

JULIE DORNEY: So after the injury at 15, obviously, he got some treatment at the hospital. But, more recently, he's been evaluated by Dr. Brawley for cognitive functioning. And then he also -- his case was reviewed by Dr. Snyder and Dr. Bigler to look at his particular limitations and review his MRI scans. And they have come to the conclusion that there were some memory issues along with some behavioral changes related to the head injury. Does that clear it up?

JULIE DORNEY: They said it could happen.

JULIE DORNEY: I think they also had said it was associated with, those were the terms that were used in the report.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: I think, too, Your Honor, that Dr. Snyder did observe his actual MRI scans, so --

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Okay.

JULIE DORNEY: Okay, sure.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. He really has no history of psychiatric hospitalizations prior to his arrest. He had a history of substance use and got into trouble in high school and had to go into outpatient treatment after he was arrested for marijuana use. And that was actually back in 1999. And then his next evaluation is actually in the Navy, and that was in 2000. And at that time, he aspired to be a Navy Seal. He was in basic training, I think, and was starting to have periods of depression, was crying a lot, and was referred for a psychological evaluation. At that point, he was assessed to have depression. He was discharged. But there was also a risk of substance abuse, although not during that moment when he was being assessed. It was, I think, in the past, so.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: No.

JULIE DORNEY: Basically, talked about that he was crying, isolative, and I think he was referred for psychological evaluation. He was depressed.

JULIE DORNEY: I would think so.

JULIE DORNEY: I think she was actually a psychologist, if I remember correctly, Dr. Martinelli. He said that -- or she reported in her reports that he was having mood swings all of his life. That he used to cycle every month or so, now he cycles every 24 hours. He will feel okay one minute and then he doesn't care about anything. He can't stop from crying at times.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: So that's the extent of what we have early on with him. When I actually interviewed him, he consistently told me that he started hearing voices at age ten. He also was ashamed of hearing voices. He did not want to be mentally ill like his mother. He never told anyone about the voices. He said that he would hear a few voices. He, basically, felt very isolated and lonely. He described the voices as inside of his head. He said he had a creepy male voice on occasion. That was mainly I think -- he specifically talked about the time of the offense, but he also talked about that in the past. The reason -- when you're actually assessing a history of voices, we do have to rely somewhat on what they've told us, particularly when there are no treatment records during that time period. And the way that he described the voice actually seemed like a true hallucination. He said that the voices would come and go. They were inconsistent -- I'm sorry, they were not -- they were intermittent as opposed to consistent. That they would go away with distraction. So if he was working on something or going to school, he was able to fight the voices. So those were typical of true hallucinations. He did not say he heard them all the time and that he couldn't distract himself from the voices. And they were not continuous. And then he -- basically, we can talk -- as we move forward, the voices actually escalated around the time of the divorce and then on into the current day.

JULIE DORNEY: He did. He had both. He actually talked about negative -- he didn't say negative self-thought, which is negative intrusive thoughts. When I was reviewing Dr. Frierson's report, he made mention of Tim using the word, thought insertion. That came from me, that did not come from Tim. I actually saw him on several occasions before Dr. Frierson did the responsibility evaluation and I had to ask him, do you ever feel like someone is putting thoughts into your head. That's called thought insertion. And he was mixing up the terms. I think what he was trying to say is that he had negative intrusive thoughts and that they were recurrent thoughts and that they were racing thoughts. So that's the difference. But the term actually came from me.

JULIE DORNEY: He did. You know, I don't think that they are what we consider visual hallucinations that are consistent with mental illness. They're actual visual hallucinations that are more typical for people who have sensory deprivation. Like, if you're locked up in a cell without any kind of stimulation, you can start to see things, or sleep deprivation, sometimes we can see that. But I don't think they were consistent with mental illness.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: So his paranoia -- he may have had it in the past, but really started in 2012. And he started actually forming some delusional thinking about his ex-wife at that point. I don't think they were legally divorced then, but they definitely were separated. He believed that -- during that window that she was having an affair with the neighbor, which actually turned out to be true, but he had speculation that she was. He also, as the months went on, became more and more paranoid about her and the children and, obviously, escalated during the summer of 2014.

JULIE DORNEY: He did.

JULIE DORNEY: He did. Actually, through employee assistance at his work, he was -- and this was in May of 2012. He was having severe anxiety and depression. He went to see Dr. April Hames at that point for some counseling related to the separation from his wife.

JULIE DORNEY: Let me add a couple of things from 2012. He did see Dr. Hames. She referred him to his family practitioner to get on some antidepressant medication and antianxiety medication. I don't think that he ever really took that. The follow-up note says that he was better, but when I've spoken with him about it, he really has very little memory of that. So I would suspect he didn't take it consistently, if he took it at all.

JULIE DORNEY: And then in the summer -- so then we skip forward to 2014. And between 2012 and 2014, the actual divorce happened. And he, at times, I think thought that he would get back with his ex-wife, but that did not happen and he was very depressed and sad. He did terminate treatment with Dr. Hames in 2013, in the Spring. Terminate is a strong word, I think he just quit going. But he was still having active symptoms of depression related to the divorce at that time period. But in 2014, the symptoms did escalate.

JULIE DORNEY: At which time?

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. Around -- I think it was around May that he told me he started using spice. He had actually relapsed on alcohol and marijuana during his separation from her originally in 2012 and he used that heavily intermittently. And then he stopped for a period of time and then he used it again. And around the time -- around May of 2014, he actually was using spice and began escalating the dose of spice between May, June, July of 2014.

JULIE DORNEY: He did. And, you know, fortunately, we do have some excerpts from his -- or extractions from his cell phone and computer. He was actually trying to find out if she prostituted. He was paranoid that she was doing those things. He was also paranoid about his daughter. He felt like his daughter, Merah, was -- could be schizophrenic or mentally ill. She was showing odd behaviors, in his opinion. And then as we move forward into June and July -- so the paranoia is starting more at that point and delusional thinking about them. You know, you've heard this term of fixed, false belief being a delusion. You know, this was a little more fluid, he was having those thoughts, but they were all specific to his family, his children and his wife and they were very paranoid. So it wasn't one fixed delusion that held itself over months, it was generally delusional thinking about his family.

JULIE DORNEY: He did. He had some mixed periods of depressed mood, suicidal thinking, hopelessness, lack of concentration. You know, this is where there's crossover between mood symptoms and thought disorder symptoms. He was reportedly unkempt, like he didn't care how he looked. His manager, I think, and coworkers had said that he, basically, was, you know, making some errors at work and missed some work over the summer. Obviously, missed, I think it was Monday or Tuesday before the actual offense happened. Had trouble getting his kids to school on time. So a little disheveled. All those are classic symptoms of what could be depression, but also if you're manic and disorganized in your thinking, it could apply to that, too.

JULIE DORNEY: Okay, so we're shifting to my time of evaluation, not his report of the offense?

JULIE DORNEY: In January when I saw him and I was concerned that he was starting to rev up a little bit, I said -- he did not want to go back on more Geodon because he did not want to feel tired and he didn't want the withdrawal if he couldn't get it or the food that he needed to make it work. I said, you need to speak with Dr. Wood about maybe looking at a mood stabilizer for you that would help with the manic symptoms. And I suggested Depakote, to talk to her about and I think that's what she prescribed. Actually, I don't know -- I think either a nurse practitioner or another doctor is actually prescribing it at Lexington County jail now. Actually, I think Dr. Schwartz-Maddox has prescribed it more recently. That was maybe Geodon instead.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. Mr. Jones has an extensive family history. And I counted about 20 family members who have major mental health problems, substance abuse problems, several suicides in his family. So I hope I counted the math -- I count that up right, but it's around 20 family members. And illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. So because I saw him on eight different occasions, I'll summarize what I observed overall. During the first four times that I saw him, which, again, is August of '17 through the October '17 window, he was not complaining of any psychotic symptoms. He did not complain of voices, did not complain of any manic behavior. He was not suicidal. He was very stable on his medication. He was on high doses of Geodon at that time, but I did not see any active symptoms of psychosis or of mania during that window of time. And then, like I said, in the fall of 2018, his medications were changed because he wasn't receiving them on a regular schedule. At that point, he had been weaned down significantly from his antipsychotic medication. At that point, I started to see the mood symptoms come back and withdrawal from the Geodon. And then, as we move into the winter months, into the early part of 2019, he was put on a mood stabilizer for the manic behavior that we were starting to see again. And that did get better. He was much better with that when I saw him in May. But what happened around March to April of this year -- and he told me this on May 4th when I saw him, was that he was starting to hear voices again. And at that point, I don't recall if he was taking 20 milligrams or 40 milligrams of Geodon. Again, those doses are very low compared to 320 milligrams that he was on the first, you know, few years of his incarceration. But he was starting to hear voices intermittently and he just would distract himself from the voices himself.

JULIE DORNEY: I mean, I think what I'm trying to assess is, you know, was this a snapshot in time where he just had illness related to the drug? Was this something that, you know, has continued? And this many years out, when you make those medication changes, you should not have those types of symptoms if there's no illness. So it helped me to really define the diagnosis, but also -- I knew the diagnosis probably, you know, by early January, for sure, because I was starting to see those symptoms come even in the late fall. And then I was always looking for malingering, you know, if he was feigning, I wanted to know that. I discussed that with Dr. Wood in detail, if she felt like he had feigned symptoms and she said no. And there was nothing to support that. He was very cooperative with all of us, as far as I know, all the evaluators who had worked with him. Dr. Frierson had not diagnosed malingering. I didn't see anything that looked liked malingering. This is just illness. And it obviously was at its worst point when this happened and it's been treated ever since that time period.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. So if you look at the chart -- and again, let's just refer to the red -- I'm going to try to use this pointer. There we go. The red circle and the blue circle, those are the diagnosis that we need to focus on. And those are -- on the red side, this is the thought disorder side, or the schizophrenia side, schizo-affective disorder and the blue side is the mood disorder side or the bipolar side. And so during this time period, on 8/28, he had symptoms of both. These symptoms were starting to escalate in the summer months and these were escalating in the summer months and really came to a high level on the day of the offense. What complicates it even more, though, is this middle circle because there is spice that exacerbates this preexisting condition and there is this head injury that can cause frontal disinhibition and make someone act more impulsively if they had that head injury. It's associated with that. So what I did on this word, "disinhibition", is I tried to put that with these three particular conditions, not here. Disinhibition is focused more with mood disorder, substance use and head injury. And these all -- all four of these came to a head during this time period.

JULIE DORNEY: So my diagnosis for mental illness is schizo-affective disorder. It is a combination of psychotic symptoms or thought disorder and a mood disorder, which is, in his case, suggestive of bipolar disorder. I actually thought he was manic during the time period of the crime. I do feel like that Dr. Wood feels like she's seen more depression with him. I think it's complicated with grief as he's been in prison. But he's also been treated with an anti-manic, if you would, medication, Geodon, since I think the 12th of September of 2014. So I doubt you would actually see manic symptoms until those medications are removed.

JULIE DORNEY: In the week -- I think I've touched on those months leading up to the time of the offense. That particular week, and let's say -- so if this happened on a Thursday night, on Monday of that week, when I mentioned earlier that he wasn't sleeping. I think if you look at what we have from his phone and computer records, I mean, he was up on 8/24 into the morning of 8/25 -- now, this is three days before the alleged offense. He was up from 11:00 o'clock at night until 3:00 a.m. On the evening of the 26th, going into the 27th, he was up from 11:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. and then went to work all day. And then on the evening of the 27th, going into the evening of the 28th -- or going into 8/28 -- I'm sorry, 8/28, he was up from 5:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. And then that's the day of the alleged offense. So he's not sleeping. If you look at the Google calendar notifications, like I said earlier, he would actually -- each day, he had increased goal-directed activity. He would study in the morning for 15 minutes, study Hebrew at night from 9:00 to 10:00. He would exercise Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7:30 to 8:30. He would study day trading from 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 midnight, along with working, taking care of five children and reading and praying with his children. All of that suggest manic behavior. And that's during this window of time that we're talking about.

JULIE DORNEY: Okay. So if we go to that -- which paragraph are you referring to?

JULIE DORNEY: Oh, okay. Oh, the two weeks before the offense?

JULIE DORNEY: So this would get us to mid-August, basically. The offense is at the end of August. He was complaining of little sleep. He complained of having pounding thoughts. I asked him what that meant. He said just racing thoughts, they wouldn't stop. They interfered with his functioning. He wasn't sleeping. He reported periods of irritability. He was short with the kids, as we know. He believed that the kids were colluding with Amber to harm him in some way, even though that's not realistic, these are young children. He was easily agitated with his kids and his family. He was depressed about his failed marriage. He was depressed that he actually was not going to church and he wasn't following the Bible as much as he should. So he was putting a lot of pressure on himself to get back into his studies with the Bible. He got depressed. He felt suicidal at times. He did miss work some. He missed earlier during the week of the -- the week of the events. He was late taking the kids to school. And then intermixed with that was this kind of grandiose focus on going to medical school in the Caribbean and how he would accomplish that. Along with those things, he was using spice five times a day. So -- or up to five times a day. And he says that he did that to curb the voices in his head and to calm him down. Now, when I evaluated him for a drug-induced psychotic disorder, which I do feel like it contributed, I, basically, said to him, you were using that up to five times a day for three months. You know, why did this happen then? And in my opinion, if it is all spice related, why didn't it happen a few months before? Why did it happen at that particular moment? It happened because there were other things going on.

JULIE DORNEY: I do. I received information -- I think Dr. Frierson had requested an electrician to look at that and I do think -- I mean, I got that information back that it was blown.

JULIE DORNEY: It wasn't working, sorry.

JULIE DORNEY: So he did give me a couple of inconsistencies on how long he asked Nahtahn to PT. He said one time, it was about an hour, then the rest of the interviews, he actually, I think it was 45 minutes. And then he, basically -- Nahtahn wouldn't speak to his father. He sent him to his room. And then he went in to check on Nahtahn, he remembers checking Nahtahn and Nahtahn passing out. He put him in bed. He went to get water. He returned, he realized he wasn't breathing and he panicked. He knew he was not breathing. He knew he was dead. These are his quotes: I was horrified. I was hearing voices and thinking about the kids and what would happen to them if something happened to me. When asked what he meant by that, he said, if I go to jail. He did not call the police because he believed that they would think that he had killed him. Mr. Jones repeatedly stated he had no intention of killing Nahtahn and that he was only punishing him for not answering him about the outlets. Mr. Jones stated he knew that their mom was not around and that they could not depend on her.

JULIE DORNEY: So then he said Merah and Eli came into the room and Nahtahn wasn't breathing. Mr. Jones told them he believed Nahtahn was dead. He asked them to leave the room and go into the living room. He left the room, smoked a cigarette, took Merah with him to buy more cigarettes. I think that was later. He couldn't give me a timeframe on that. He purchased ten packs of cigarettes and then headed back to his home.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. He was -- he heard a voice, kind of a creepy to kill the kids. He stated it was not a thought, but a voice. It was inside his head. When he returned home, the other children were asleep. And the youngest two were in the back, the older two were in the living area. And then he started thinking about what would happen. If he were to go to jail what would happen to the kids. And he believed that they would be better off in heaven than to not have parents, that he would be in prison, that their mother would not be there for them. And that's when he believes that he would, "send them to the other side, no pain or suffering then." He said he was hearing voices and high levels of anxiety, racing thoughts. He didn't want his kids to have a life without their mother. He knew it would be better for them to take their -- he knew it would be better for him to take their lives than to live without a mother and they would be better off in heaven. He didn't think about other options during that time period. He did not think about his children going to live with his father or with his grandmother. I asked specifically why he didn't think about. He just said he was so anxious and so -- and hallucinating and so agitated and, obviously, just confused that he did not think about that. And then he smoked one to two bowls of spice, went to the living room where the older two children were sleeping. And that's when he put his hands around Eli's neck -- I'm sorry, he put his hands around Merah's neck and then Eli's neck and then he, obviously, strangled the younger two with a belt.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: He said, Dad, take me with you.

JULIE DORNEY: He said that Merah resisted and -- you know, I thought it was interesting he told me that because if he was making up this story, that certainly doesn't support him in any way. But he did say that she resisted when he -- when he choked her.

JULIE DORNEY: He didn't tell me he told her -- well, he did tell me he loved her and that he would see her again in heaven. And Gabriel told him that he loved him before he died. Mr. Jones told Gabriel he loved him, too.

JULIE DORNEY: He told me that he overdosed on seven to eight bowls of spice, that he wanted to die. He did awaken and he realized what had happened. He knew he would go to jail. And then the next several days, he drove aimlessly around South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and thought about escaping to places, such as Mexico, Las Vegas. He knew he would be found by the police. He bought cleaning supplies, tools to dispose of the bodies. He bought muriatic acid, a saw, trash bags, bleach. I mean, he willing told me all of that. When he left Lexington, he wrapped the bodies in sheets and blankets, put them in the back of his SUV where they remained for several days -- sorry, I'm going too fast. He wrapped the bodies in sheets and blankets and put them in the back of his SUV, where he remained for several days -- where they remained for several days as he drove. And then he later disposed of the bodies in a wood area in Alabama.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. Yes. Well, I think we've touched on the military history diagnosis or when he was actually assessed by Dr. Martinelli in the Navy. We've also touched on -- in fact, he saw Dr. Hames for counseling after his separation for anxiety and depression. He, also, was briefly prescribed antidepressant and antianxiety medication. If he took that, I don't know that he did. And then I think the next information actually goes to the time at Lexington County jail after he was arrested. So this is actually a medical record note from September 11th, 2014. He was on suicide watch at that time. And he was reporting a history of hearing voices and seeing things. And his quote was, "I hear voices when I'm not busy doing things. I hear voices when I did it -- I was hearing voices when I did it. I see shapes, like squares on the wall that change shapes." He reported that he was self-medicating at times to help with the voices and he was too embarrassed to seek mental health treatment. His mood was labile and he complained of hallucinations. So that's just a few days after his arrest. And then the next note was on 9/12/14. Basically, he was again -- he talked about hearing and seeing things that other people don't hear or see. He stated random people pop up and tell him to hurt others. He was prescribed Geodon at that time period. And, again, this is a short time period after the arrest. And then, of course, Dr. Wood titrated his medication at that point. And then as we move on, in September of 2014, continue to receive treatment with Dr. Wood. He continued to be on medication until this time period now. He -- his hallucinations did resolve for a long period of time and they've just now recently come back.

JULIE DORNEY: I did. I mean, I, obviously, reviewed thousands of pages of information. And the police reports were part of that, all the State discovery was part of that. I found it very helpful. There was a -- on September 7th, which is the day after his arrest, he was meeting with law enforcement. And his quotes on that -- in that interview, and I'd like to read that, to me was significant. Again, this is before -- this is the day after his arrest, so he's not met with a psychiatrist at that point. So these are quotes from him and without any ability to talk with a mental health professional or, you know, how to fake this if he was going to fake it. But he, basically, said that he was pleading the Fifth --

JULIE DORNEY: Yeah.

JULIE DORNEY: Where?

JULIE DORNEY: Sorry.

JULIE DORNEY: Can I start with "she passed it on to me"?

JULIE DORNEY: Sorry. Mr. Jones said she passed it on to me, the voices in my head. She gave me what she had, talking about his mom. I went off the deep end. She put it in my head. The only way you can fix me is to kill me. After Amber left me, it just came out of me. Put a bullet in my head to fix me. Voices are in my head. The investigator noted, "He thinks the kids want to kill him." He also noted Tim, "talked about the electrical outlets in the house and a child getting electrocuted. The kid stuck his tongue in socket. The kids would cut him up with knife."

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes, so --

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. So Eric Johnson -- in my report it was a report written by Trent Weeks, but it was actually Eric Johnson's information, I think, about his interview with Mr. Jones. And that was on 9/7, also. He, "Acting in such a manner that I have never seen. He was sweating profusely in a cold room with beads of sweat dripping from his hair. He would scream out that it was Cindy, that's his mother, who put these voices in his head and that Cindy passed this on to him. She put this poison in my head." The investigator wrote the following: "Profuse sweating, foaming at the mouth, yelling or screaming out, burst of anger and fear of the children."

JULIE DORNEY: Well, it could be both. Clearly, I think that there was illness there and spice, obviously, aggravated that more.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: So I thought this was actually one of the most helpful interviews when you're trying to figure out mental state around the time of the offense. And I actually listened to that interview several times. Mr. Jones' speech was very pressured and it was disjointed. He seemed to hop around when he was talking. He cried intermittently, which really shows mood lability. He specifically cried when he was talking about choking his children and stated he believed he was mentally ill. He discussed the voices in his head at the time of the offenses and he also said he was having quote, "a hundred thoughts of what he was going to do after the offenses". He reported he heard voices and seeing things both on and off drugs. He stated on the day of the crime, the voices ran rampant in his head. He stated he believed the children were conspiring against him. He stated he would do the same thing if a police officer had been there and he saw himself as a target.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. And he, basically, said he would have done the same thing if a police officer had been there. So that indicates -- and he's talking about the Nahtahn situation. That indicates that the whole issue of punishing Nahtahn in his mind was not legally wrong.

JULIE DORNEY: Yeah. This is the difference between an auditory hallucination and a thought. So if someone is having recurrent negative thoughts, like if we're upset about something, we have negative thoughts about ourselves, we're thinking what am I going to do? So you kind of think about it as you're talking to yourself. But if it's a hallucination -- and particularly in Mr. Jones' case, he actually was hearing, what is Tim going to do? So he was hearing a third party, actually, that third party voice. And so I feel like that's more consistent with a true hallucination versus a thought.

JULIE DORNEY: We did have some recorded phone conversations between Amber Jones, his ex-wife, Mr. Jones, Sr., and Ms. Julie Jones, his stepmother during that window when Tim was actually missing. And they had a discussion about -- and I'll just quote what Amber Jones said. "Tim needs help really bad. I even told him that he needs to be on some kind of medication. He needs like a psychiatrist or something. He really does need help badly." And then there was another conversation -- I don't know if that was a separate conversation, but with the same people. I guess it was separate because it was following his arrest. Ms. Jones, Amber Jones, indicated that Tim was quote, "losing it" when they moved to South Carolina and turned into quote, "a completely different person". Mr. Jones, Sr. stated quote, "he was not right" and she discussed his erratic behavior.

JULIE DORNEY: And then the final pieces were these things I've already mentioned. One is just looking at the Google calendar and his kind of increase in his daily structured activities. And then, also, in the same month, in August when this happened, his insomnia.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes, just the head injury component, which, to me, was a contributing factor to his disinhibition.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. So he did test positive for spice, which, to me, is a contributing factor for exacerbating his mental illness during that time period.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes, I did. I looked at, obviously, multiple examiners' reports, all of Dr. Wood's records, my interviews, I've met with him on many occasions, and none of those suggested malingering. There was one -- I think there was one note in the prison by a staff member that may be questioned malingering, but there are hundreds and hundreds of pages that do not support that.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: So, again, when we're assessing criminal responsibility, we're assessing the time of the offense. And during that time period, it's my opinion that during the several weeks leading up to the offense and on the day of the offense and for several weeks to months afterwards, he suffered from psychotic thinking, specifically delusional thinking and hallucinations. He also had some negative symptoms, which I did not include in my report, but he had symptoms of psychosis along with a mood disorder, specifically, a manic episode that is consistent with bipolar disorder. Those are two examples of a thought disorder and mood disorder. It's a major mental illness, obviously, but it's combined illness called schizo-affective disorder. So he has a major mental illness. He had a major mental illness on the day of the offense. And because of that mental illness, he was unable to recognize the legal wrongfulness as related to Nahtahn's death. He was unable to recognize the -- or have the capacity to recognize that -- the difference between moral right and moral wrong as it relates to his four other children.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: So the law here is that a Defendant, as a result of mental disease or defect, and in this case, schizo-affective disorder, lacks the capacity to distinguish moral or legal right from moral or legal wrong or to recognize the particular act charged as morally or legally wrong.

JULIE DORNEY: So --

JULIE DORNEY: -- Mr. Jones did not recognize that when he asked Nahtahn to -- when he was Mr -- when he was PTing Nahtahn that he would actually kill Nahtahn or harm Nahtahn in any significant way. And he even said that if a police officer had been there, he would have done the same thing.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes. He feels very justified in how he punishes -- or how he punished his children. Based on his religious beliefs, he believed that he should discipline them, that he had an obligation to discipline them. You know, there was lots of evidence, religious books and Bibles around his mobile home. He prayed with the children. He quoted scripture. He had them write scripture. He spoke in tongues. So he was very involved in his fundamentalist Christian life.

JULIE DORNEY: It's my conclusion that because of his belief that they would be better off in heaven and he did have -- you know, he thought that through. He believed that they would be better in heaven than without any parents. He was not thinking there was another option to be with grandparents. It's my opinion that he was unable to distinguish moral right from moral wrong.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Eight total, yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes, that's true.

JULIE DORNEY: Correct.

JULIE DORNEY: Specifically, what are you -- what concerns are you talking about?

JULIE DORNEY: Right.

JULIE DORNEY: He had -- he had general paranoid beliefs about his family members that started in the summer. One was about Merah. He believed that she could be schizophrenic. He also believed that his ex-wife could be a prostitute. And then as he got into -- as we got into the August month, he actually started having fixations about that his children and Amber were colluding against him. And then that's when all that happened with Nahtahn. So there's several pieces to it.

JULIE DORNEY: That part's self-reported, that part is.

JULIE DORNEY: Yeah.

JULIE DORNEY: About which part with Amber?

JULIE DORNEY: Oh, yeah.

JULIE DORNEY: Right.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: He was afraid she was going to be schizophrenic like his mother.

JULIE DORNEY: He felt like --

JULIE DORNEY: He said that she was talking to herself.

JULIE DORNEY: I think he was just afraid that it could be -- she was hallucinating and that she could be getting some kind of mental illness.

JULIE DORNEY: No, I don't think he knew if it was true. He was trying to figure out what was going on with her.

JULIE DORNEY: I don't know. I don't know if I would jump to a conclusion that maybe my child's mentally ill based on that.

JULIE DORNEY: Well, I mean, it's a piece of the whole thing I was talking about. It's not one specific thing. But as far as your question goes, the data that I had were those two pieces of data.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Because I think it was a pattern that started in that summer that was much more significant and escalated until the day of the offense.

JULIE DORNEY: No.

JULIE DORNEY: It's one of them.

JULIE DORNEY: But there are others. I mean, he certainly had negative symptoms, too.

JULIE DORNEY: Correct.

JULIE DORNEY: They can be. I mean, you can do some objective data to help with that, yeah.

JULIE DORNEY: Correct, yeah.

JULIE DORNEY: Right. They're just associations.

JULIE DORNEY: Right.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: I mean, it was a significant component, but it certainly wasn't the determining factor. I mean, I think the fact that -- specifically, when it comes to diagnosis, I think it's very helpful because she's had more contact with him than any of us and she's provided treatment now for years for him. So from a diagnostic perspective, I think it has significant weight, but, ultimately, I make my own decision on diagnosis.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Right. And I haven't seen that either.

JULIE DORNEY: What's normal?

JULIE DORNEY: There certainly are patients that you can see that with, who are actively psychotic, but once they're treated, you tend to not see that, even if they hear voices. So that's actually not correct.

JULIE DORNEY: The 12th of September.

JULIE DORNEY: No, it was not.

JULIE DORNEY: Yeah -- I mean, I don't have the records, but it was the 12th of September when he started medication.

JULIE DORNEY: I'll find it, just one second. September 12th, 2014, which was just a few weeks -- it was actually about a week after his arrest, less than a week, he started on Geodon.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: I think -- yes, she agreed that that report had been there.

JULIE DORNEY: I don't know that she agreed with the information, but she agreed the report was in there.

JULIE DORNEY: Well, it's something I would consider. I mean, I think if there's a pattern of it, it's certainly important. If she had seen him malingering, I certainly would think that that's important, as anybody who has evaluated him that that would be important. Particularly in the treatment setting, that's important.

JULIE DORNEY: I did not hear that. I know she's made the diagnosis of schizo-affective disorder.

JULIE DORNEY: It could. I mean, if that's what she believed. I mean, she's made the diagnosis of schizo-affective. If that's what the jury heard, it could. However, what's in the record doesn't support that.

JULIE DORNEY: She, basically, referenced hallucinations and delusional thinking. She actually said negative symptoms this morning, which would support the schizophrenia side of things. And then she commented on the affective side, which is the mood disorder side, and spoke more to the depressive symptoms, not the manic symptoms. She said there was one period where he had some derailed speech, which could have been supported by manic symptoms, but she mainly focused on depression.

JULIE DORNEY: Schizophrenia bipolar, I think she's saying depressed.

JULIE DORNEY: Well, she's diagnosing it as schizo-affective disorder depressed, I think, based on -- from what I could tell.

JULIE DORNEY: Probably about a hundred hours. You know, I will adjust off, at least, 25 percent of my fee because it's a government case and adjust off all my travel, so.

JULIE DORNEY: About 19.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Depressive disorder.

JULIE DORNEY: And a history of substance abuse, yes.

JULIE DORNEY: I'm sorry? I didn't understand what you said.

JULIE DORNEY: It could. There's just no reference to his hip in any of the documents.

JULIE DORNEY: Yeah. No, I did ask him about it. He still thinks it's his hip.

JULIE DORNEY: Yeah.

JULIE DORNEY: But the documents don't support that. They support --

JULIE DORNEY: Right, but he was referred to the psychologist because of the crying spells and the depression.

JULIE DORNEY: Yeah, I guess it could. Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: It was around the time of his separation. And he actually was --

JULIE DORNEY: Correct, yeah.

JULIE DORNEY: I didn't mean to. I don't know if I just wasn't asked that or what. I'm happy to talk about it.

JULIE DORNEY: That was when he was in prison, yes.

JULIE DORNEY: He had a history of substance abuse before he came into prison. And, at that time, that was his arrest when he was -- he was arrested for stealing a car, I think, and cocaine use and he was drinking and smoking pot and had used some other drugs.

JULIE DORNEY: That's one thing. I mean, it can be related to tolerance and dependence on substances, too.

JULIE DORNEY: So that's just what we call -- it's not a major mental illness, but it's actually enduring patterns of behavior that are maladaptive. And in his case, you know, he had a history of antisocial acts or borderline personality, like chronic adjustment problems that could contribute. And I tend not to make that diagnosis in a one-time evaluation, but, you know, I think that particular evaluator did, so.

JULIE DORNEY: It's someone who actually is arrogant, entitled, basically, attention seeking, those behaviors.

JULIE DORNEY: Could be selfish.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: It's possible.

JULIE DORNEY: Because it points to a major mental illness that's a mood disorder. And those -- and bipolar disorder can actually be associated with psychosis. And with psychosis, you can actually hear voices and have delusional thinking. So it all can actually be part of a mood disorder, also.

JULIE DORNEY: Well, I think it escalated that summer. It's gone on this year. So I think -- you know, with his med changes, we've seen it. So there's evidence years later that it's there, but it certainly had escalated in that summer period.

JULIE DORNEY: I think it's just that high level energy when you're manic and you, every minute of the day were planning and doing things. So I was trying to illustrate to the jury the structure of what he did each day, which, to me, is just off the chain.

JULIE DORNEY: Well, that's the thought disorder side, this is the mood disorder side. This is why it's complicated and why the diagram, because there's overlap in a lot of that.

JULIE DORNEY: Mood disorder. Bipolar disorder, it's mania.

JULIE DORNEY: Absolutely. You're right.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: I'd have to check. It was earlier in the week.

JULIE DORNEY: I just know that he was on the computer.

JULIE DORNEY: I think he was doing something on the computer. Yeah, that was actually on the 24th, so that would have been into the 25th. So that was Sunday night into Monday.

JULIE DORNEY: I don't know.

JULIE DORNEY: I don't know that. I just know he also -- he told -- I mean, he, basically, said he wasn't sleeping at all.

JULIE DORNEY: I don't know what all he was doing during that period.

JULIE DORNEY: You know, when you look at the records, it looks like some of that started, actually, back in July. But just his plans to exercise, structured time for prayer and reading to his children. And then the day trading piece is not clear to me. But I think it started during that month before. The Google calendar, to me, was much more in line with when the offense happened. That was in August.

JULIE DORNEY: Well, not all of it, no. I think it came -- it escalated during that window in August, but he's had current -- he's had symptoms to this day and he had depression before that. So the illness hasn't gone away. It's still requiring treatment and he still has symptoms.

JULIE DORNEY: Right. Because that's what I was asked to assess, is that particular manic episode, that period of time, the detail of that.

JULIE DORNEY: He used -- he started using spice, actually, a few months before that. And I would challenge why if he started using a few months before this behavior didn't happen beforehand, if it was all from the spice.

JULIE DORNEY: I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.

JULIE DORNEY: I think it was an accumulation of everything. This is a man who went through a terrible divorce, has custody of his five children, he wanted a change, he was not doing well at work. I mean, it was a series of things. He was overwhelmed. I think it came to a head at that point.

JULIE DORNEY: And drugs made it worse.

JULIE DORNEY: In my opinion, there was a diagnosable illness and drugs did make it worse.

JULIE DORNEY: Could be.

JULIE DORNEY: Okay.

JULIE DORNEY: Yeah, he showed me.

JULIE DORNEY: He did not say that it was a violent shaking.

JULIE DORNEY: Yeah.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: He couldn't give me an exact time period. He didn't know how long it was. He did know he went to get cigarettes and he came back and it happened, but it wasn't clear as to how long the time was.

JULIE DORNEY: He went with Merah. Merah went with him.

JULIE DORNEY: I don't.

JULIE DORNEY: Yeah, I mean, I think it could. Yeah, I -- I mean, I think it could.

JULIE DORNEY: Well, if it was closer to the time of the first death, it could raise questions more of impulsivity. If he came back and he was thinking it through because we were kind of talking about the capacity issues related to moral wrongfulness and he was thinking about it, I think it could actually go more to what he was thinking from a disorganized standpoint. So I think the -- it's more impulsive if it's closer, it's less impulsive if it's not.

JULIE DORNEY: Around 7:40 or between 7:30 and 8:30.

JULIE DORNEY: I'm aware that there's a receipt, I just didn't know the time period, no.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: Yes.

JULIE DORNEY: No.

JULIE DORNEY: Well, I just know he had a really good relationship with Eli, but I don't know why he -- other than what he told me.