-Caveat Lector-
from:
http://www.registerguard.com/news/19991104/1a.kinkel.1104.html
Click Here: <A
HREF="http://www.registerguard.com/news/19991104/1a.kinkel.1104.html">The
Register-Guard: 'The voices said, 'Shoot' '…</A>
-----
November 4, 1999
'The voices said, 'Shoot' ': Kinkel resisted for years until the commands won
out, psychologist says
By BILL BISHOP
The Register-Guard
Kip Kinkel heard voices for the first time when he was 12 as he got off the
bus after school. They commanded him to kill and berated him as worthless, a
Portland psychologist testified Wednesday.
>From that day on, three voices boomed in his head whenever he was under
stress, psychologist Orin Bolstad said during the second day of Kinkel's
sentencing hearing in Lane County Circuit Court.
At the same time, Kinkel began developing delusional thoughts that triggered
strange behavior, including making bombs and collecting guns, Bolstad said.
"There's no doubt that Kip needs a lot of help, but as a father I believe he
should spend the rest of his natural life behind bars"
- David Alldredge, father of Kinkel victim Jennifer Alldredge
Photo: BRIAN DAVIES / The Register-Guard
Kinkel feared a plague would strike, for example, and that the Disney Corp.
would use censorship to take over the country, Bolstad said. He felt a need
to accumulate food. He wanted to make bombs in case of Chinese invasion or
societal breakdown. He believed the government had implanted a computer chip
in his brain to control his thinking.
The voices and delusions drove him to unpredictable outbursts, depression,
paranoia - and ultimately to mass murder, the psychologist said.
"His behavior was dominated by psychotic thinking and by mental illness,"
Bolstad said.
The testimony capped a day that brought an appeal from Kinkel's older sister,
Kristin, to the judge for understanding. A detective also read a letter Kip
Kinkel had left on the family's coffee table after he killed his parents and
went to Thurston High School armed with three guns and 1,100 rounds of
ammunition.
Kinkel's letter showed that he believed he had so disappointed his parents by
being suspended for bringing a loaded gun to school that they couldn't live
with his failure.
"My parents can't take that. It would destroy them. The embarrassment would
be too much for them," he wrote. "I am a horrible son."
Kristin Kinkel testified about the difficulties her brother had with some
subjects at school, especially spelling, and about the tensions his academic
problems caused between the teen-ager and his parents - particularly his
father.
In a letter to the judge, she professed her love for her brother and urged
the judge to consider allowing him to go free someday. Kip Kinkel faces 25 to
220 years in prison for killing his parents, two Thurston students and
wounding 25 other students 17 months ago.
Bolstad, who holds a Ph.D. in child psychology and treats young killers in
Oregon juvenile prisons, said Kip Kinkel had been able to resist the urge to
obey his internal voices for years, but the stress of being discovered with
the gun at school and his father's anger were enough to make him succumb to
the commands.
Kinkel referred to the three voices as A, B and C, and they got louder and
louder as they told him to kill his father after the two returned home that
day, Bolstad said.
``A said, `You have to kill him. Shoot him,' '' Bolstad quoted Kinkel as
saying. ``My dad was sitting at the (breakfast) bar. The voices said, `Shoot
him.' I had no choice. The voices said I had no choice.''
After he killed his mother, Kinkel said the voices told him to ``Go to school
and kill everybody. Look what you've already done,'' Bolstad said.
The psychologist said eight tests he conducted point to three possible
diagnoses for Kinkel: paranoid schizophrenia, depressed schizophrenia or
bipolar disorder. Loosely defined, the disorders are characterized by
disorganized thinking, internal voices and deluded thought patterns.
Bolstad said he couldn't narrow the diagnosis to a specific mental illness
because of Kinkel's young age and overlapping test results. But he found that
Kinkel was suicidal, extremely emotional and unpredictable, opposed to
authority figures and melancholy when he was tested.
During a break in the sentencing hearing, the father of one of the students
wounded by Kinkel said Bolstad's testimony only reinforced his belief that
Kinkel should receive the maximum possible sentence.
"There's no doubt that Kip needs a lot of help, but as a father I believe he
should spend the rest of his natural life behind bars," said David Alldredge,
whose daughter, Jennifer, was shot.
Alldredge noted that Bolstad repeatedly said he couldn't offer a firm
diagnosis on Kinkel's mental problems.
"The testimony basically convinced me that Kip will be well-served behind
bars, where he will have lots of opportunities for help," Alldredge said.
In court, Bolstad said people with similar disorders can be treated with
medication. He noted that Kinkel reported his voices went away for three
months in early 1997 when he was taking the antidepressant Prozac under a
psychiatrist's orders.
Psychiatric medication administered in jail now is helping Kinkel control the
voices, and he would continue to respond well to treatment in the future
because he's young and his delusions aren't so deeply embedded, Bolstad said.
He testified that he didn't believe the 17-year-old was faking mental illness
- even though the only previous record of voices was once in April 1997 when
Kinkel was reprimanded at school for loudly cursing "the voice in my head."
Under cross-examination by prosecutor Caren Tracy, Bolstad said it's no
surprise that Kinkel could kill his father and, over the next few hours, talk
rationally with several people on the telephone and tell plausible lies to
all of them about his father's whereabouts.
That's part of his mental illness: Kinkel could be delusional but still
function well enough to get along, he said.
Responding to Bolstad's assertion that Kinkel hadn't often been violent
before the shootings, Tracy asked him to explain a dozen examples of violent
acts.
For example, she said, there was the time when 6-year-old Kinkel chased and
struck an older boy with a steel rod hard enough to cause permanent injury in
the arm; the time Kinkel admitted aiming his rifle at a "happy Mormon family"
in the neighborhood; the time he exploded at his friends when he thought
they'd stolen one of his knives; the time he tried to attack his friends with
a golf club and kitchen knife after they teased him; the many times he
antagonized and fought with a classmate in seventh and eighth grades; his
obsession with killing a football player who had roughed him up on the field;
and the times he told people he wanted to be the next Unabomber.
All of Kinkel's actions, Bolstad said, are consistent with his mental illness.
Tracy asked Bolstad to explain why Kinkel might sometimes act so violently on
the command of voices and yet ignore the voices on other occasions.
"I wish I could give you a good explanation of that," Bolstad said. "It's not
as if it doesn't happen. I think the picture is pretty complete. If he were
not paranoid schizophrenic, I do not think he would be a killer. I think his
actions were based on voices and delusions."
At the close of Bolstad's testimony, Tracy asked how society could be safe
from Kinkel if he were released from prison.
Bolstad said Kinkel should never go free without proper medication,
structured living arrangements and other support.
"There is not a cure for it," Bolstad said. "I do think he can be managed. I
am awestruck by how much people change when they're given the proper
medicine."
WHAT'S NEXT
Defense case: More psychological testimony is expected today. Eight people
took the stand Wednesday, including Kristin Kinkel, neighbors and teachers.
When: In Courtroom 303 at the Lane County Courthouse, 125 E. Eighth Ave.,
from 9 a.m. until noon and from 1:30 p.m. until 5 p.m.
Seating: Although ample public seating was available Wednesday, a lottery
system is in place to assign seating if more people wish to attend.
Details: No purses, backpacks, bags, weapons of any kind, even fingernail
clippers, are allowed in the courtroom. Anyone who leaves must wait for a
break to be readmitted.
More on the sentencing hearing:
Kip Kinkel's letter
Sister Kristin says Kinkel needs hope
Kristin Kinkel's letter to judge
Background:
Thurston shootings background, story archive
Copyright © 1999 The Register-Guard
=====
from:
http://www.registerguard.com/news/19991104/1a.kipletter.1104.html
Click Here: <A
HREF="http://www.registerguard.com/news/19991104/1a.kipletter.1104.html">The
Register-Guard: Kip Kinkel's letter</A>
-----
November 4, 1999
Kip Kinkel's letter
Text of a letter Kip Kinkel left on the living room coffee table at home
after he killed his parents:
"I have just killed my parents. I don't know what is happening. I love my mom
and dad so much. I just got two felonies on my record. My parents can't take
that. It would destroy them. The embarrass- ment would be too much for them.
They couldn't live with themselves. I am so sorry.
"I am a horrible son. I wish I had been aborted. I destroy anything I touch.
I can't eat. I can't sleep. I didn't deserve them. They were wonderful
people. It's not their fault or the fault of any person or organization or
television show. My head just doesn't work right. (Expletive) these voices
inside my head.
"I want to die. I want to be gone. But I have to kill people. I don't know
why. I am so sorry.
"Why did God do this to me? I have never been happy. I wish I was happy. I
wish I made my mother proud, but I am nothing. I try so hard to find
happiness, but you know me: I hate everything. I have no other choice. What
have I become? I am so sorry."
More on the sentencing hearing:
'The voices said, 'Shoot' ' - Expert: He resisted for years until the
commands won out
Sister Kristin says Kinkel needs hope
Kristin Kinkel's letter to judge
Background:
Thurston shootings background, story archive
Copyright © 1999 The Register-Guard
-----
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