You’ve probably heard it before. The defendant claims that voices in his or her head told her to kill. Andrea Yates killed her children because she believed they were possessed, and the Son of Sam Killer, David Berkowitz, believed (or claimed to believe) that the neighbor’s dog was the devil and telling him to kill. A trial that’s currently underway in Decatur, Georgia seems as though it might be shaping up in a similar fashion. In this case, the “demon defense” might make a difference in the trial.
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The case involves Hemy Neuman, who is charged with the murder of Rusty Sneiderman. A forensic psychologist, Dr. Adriana Flores, testified that Neuman is psychotic and bipolar. She claims that he did not have the mental capacity to know what he was doing was wrong at the time of the shooting. Neuman already admitted to killing Sneiderman, but his attorneys reason that he was insane at the time of the murder. The case gets strange.
Dr. Flores claims that the defendant was manic, and that he experiences psychosis along with delusions. She claims that he’s had episodes of delusions since he was 13. She says that Neuman felt the presence of a demon, and said that the demon was much bigger than he was. She said he could feel the demon engulfing him. He also believed that he was the father of Sneiderman’s two children, and he heard an angel tell him Sneiderman was going to harm the children. Thus, if the psychosis is real, he may have acted in the belief that he was doing the right thing.
Quite a few other strange things are happening in this trial, including the possible affair of Neuman and the victim’s wife. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with the case and whether the demon defense is viable.
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