MOBILE, Al.
More than a decade ago, according to prosecutors, Jeremy Shawn Bentley abducted a man from a nightclub in Biloxi, beat and strangled him to death in the woods of Grand Bay and drove away in the man’s truck.
Bentley was captured in California, charged in Alabama with capital murder and later found not guilty by reason of mental disease or mental defect.
Two psychologists said Bentley suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and had multiple personalities. He dreamed of killing people, they said, and believed he was a supernatural being.
Now, the Alabama Department of Mental Health has petitioned Mobile County Circuit Court arguing that Bentley is no longer insane and should be released from Taylor Hardin Secure Medical Facility in Tuscaloosa. Bentley has admitted to faking mental illness in the past, according to a sworn affidavit by his psychiatrist.
“The defendant has received maximum benefit of treatment from the department, and it is the opinion of the department that he is showing no signs or symptoms of a mental illness and has no mental disorder for which any appropriate treatment is available in a department facility,” wrote Alabama Assistant Attorney General David Huddleston on behalf of the Department of Mental Health.
On Jan. 26, Circuit Judge Michael Youngpeter will consider whether Bentley, 34, should be allowed to walk free.
If Bentley were released, District Attorney Ashley Rich said that she would have the right to try him again in Tolbert’s death, and would seek to do so.
“This is a potentially very dangerous situation,” Rich said. “If this man were allowed to be released from Taylor Hardin, all the indicators are there that he will offend again, and he will kill again.”
Bentley’s lawyer did not respond last week to requests for comment.
John Ziegler, a spokesman for the Department of Mental Health said that while the agency can’t discuss a specific case, “we are a hospital system and we are legally obligated to petition the court or discharge when, after careful scrutiny, our doctors and treatment professionals deem that a patient no longer requires psychiatric hospitalization.”
In the early hours of New Year’s Day 2000, Bentley and another man, David Kabat, kidnapped Jamie Ray Tolbert, 24, of Lucedale, Miss., from a Biloxi nightclub and drove him to the Grand Bay area, according to testimony.
Bentley choked Tolbert with rollerblade laces and slammed him into the ground, then killed him by strangling him with Kabat’s belt, according to investigators.
The two men, both from North Carolina, were arrested in California driving Tolbert’s SUV. Tolbert’s credit cards had been used in a cross-country spending spree. Several guns were found inside the vehicle.
Kabat, now 31, was convicted by Mobile jurors and is serving life in prison without parole in an Alabama prison.
In an affidavit, Bentley’s current psychiatrist at Taylor Hardin, Dr. William Freeman, wrote that during the past year of treating Bentley, he has not shown any signs of major mental illness.
“He has denied significant symptoms of a major mental illness,” Freeman said. “He has admitted on multiple occasions that he feigned mental illness in the past, that he has made threats as a manipulative tactic to ‘get what he wants’ or to avoid what ‘he does not want.’”
Freeman said that Bentley does have a history of aggression, but that is not linked to any severe mental disorder.
He said that Bentley has been treated for anxiety “due to his situation of hospitalization/incarceration and frustration with legal processes” in trying to be released.
Ten years ago, though, two psychiatrists — one from the prosecution, another from Bentley’s defense — agreed that Bentley was mentally incompetent and should be committed to the Department of Mental Health.
According to one psychologist, Bentley thought he was one of seven people chosen by God to have a “special role” in the end of the world, “and he is not certain which side he is on, either Satan’s or God’s side.”
He dreamed about killing people, according to a psychologist, and had difficulties separating those dreams from reality.
His case took a number of twists through the court system.
Bentley’s jury convicted him of capital murder in 2002 despite the psychologists’ testimony.
Two years later, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his conviction, ruling that then-Circuit Judge Herman Thomas made a mistake in ordering a third psychologist to examine Bentley when the prosecution and defense experts had already agreed that he was mentally incompetent.
The third psychologist had said Bentley was mentally competent at the time of the killing and was capable of standing trial.
The case was sent back to Mobile County Circuit Court, and Bentley was found not guilty of capital murder by reason of mental disease or mental defect. He was ordered to Taylor Hardin in 2005.
Rich said the two psychologists who originally testified in the case will return to the courtroom this month as prosecution witnesses. The two, she said, will testify that Bentley still sees demons, hears voices and is still a danger to the public.
Rich said that Bentley began mutilating and torturing animals when he was 9 years old, and since being in custody, he has assaulted patients and staff. He just finished a month in solitary confinement, she said.
“You cannot cure someone of delusional disorder and psychosis,” Rich said.
In 2010, Bentley was convicted of assault for punching an officer who was trying to pull Bentley out of a violent episode with another patient, according to court records.
“He’s got a lot of classic indicators that he may even be a potential serial killer,” Rich added. “He does not deserve another opportunity to commit the horrific acts that he committed.”
In a recorded confession just after his arrest, Bentley told investigators that he and Kabat had hitched a ride to New Orleans from North Carolina in late 1999, and they soon found themselves down and out in Biloxi. They stayed in cheap motels and drank beer, and by New Year’s Eve, they’d decided to steal a car.
“I’d already planned that we were gonna get a car,” Bentley said. “And then, of course, I thought about what to do with the individual. And I figured, kill’im. I’ve wanted to kill somebody for some years, anyway...: Just to see what it was like ... the thrill.”
The hearing is scheduled for Jan. 26 at Mobile Government Plaza.
More than a decade ago, according to prosecutors, Jeremy Shawn Bentley abducted a man from a nightclub in Biloxi, beat and strangled him to death in the woods of Grand Bay and drove away in the man’s truck.
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| Jeremy Bentley |
Two psychologists said Bentley suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and had multiple personalities. He dreamed of killing people, they said, and believed he was a supernatural being.
Now, the Alabama Department of Mental Health has petitioned Mobile County Circuit Court arguing that Bentley is no longer insane and should be released from Taylor Hardin Secure Medical Facility in Tuscaloosa. Bentley has admitted to faking mental illness in the past, according to a sworn affidavit by his psychiatrist.
“The defendant has received maximum benefit of treatment from the department, and it is the opinion of the department that he is showing no signs or symptoms of a mental illness and has no mental disorder for which any appropriate treatment is available in a department facility,” wrote Alabama Assistant Attorney General David Huddleston on behalf of the Department of Mental Health.
On Jan. 26, Circuit Judge Michael Youngpeter will consider whether Bentley, 34, should be allowed to walk free.
If Bentley were released, District Attorney Ashley Rich said that she would have the right to try him again in Tolbert’s death, and would seek to do so.
“This is a potentially very dangerous situation,” Rich said. “If this man were allowed to be released from Taylor Hardin, all the indicators are there that he will offend again, and he will kill again.”
Bentley’s lawyer did not respond last week to requests for comment.
John Ziegler, a spokesman for the Department of Mental Health said that while the agency can’t discuss a specific case, “we are a hospital system and we are legally obligated to petition the court or discharge when, after careful scrutiny, our doctors and treatment professionals deem that a patient no longer requires psychiatric hospitalization.”
In the early hours of New Year’s Day 2000, Bentley and another man, David Kabat, kidnapped Jamie Ray Tolbert, 24, of Lucedale, Miss., from a Biloxi nightclub and drove him to the Grand Bay area, according to testimony.
Bentley choked Tolbert with rollerblade laces and slammed him into the ground, then killed him by strangling him with Kabat’s belt, according to investigators.
The two men, both from North Carolina, were arrested in California driving Tolbert’s SUV. Tolbert’s credit cards had been used in a cross-country spending spree. Several guns were found inside the vehicle.
Kabat, now 31, was convicted by Mobile jurors and is serving life in prison without parole in an Alabama prison.
In an affidavit, Bentley’s current psychiatrist at Taylor Hardin, Dr. William Freeman, wrote that during the past year of treating Bentley, he has not shown any signs of major mental illness.
“He has denied significant symptoms of a major mental illness,” Freeman said. “He has admitted on multiple occasions that he feigned mental illness in the past, that he has made threats as a manipulative tactic to ‘get what he wants’ or to avoid what ‘he does not want.’”
Freeman said that Bentley does have a history of aggression, but that is not linked to any severe mental disorder.
He said that Bentley has been treated for anxiety “due to his situation of hospitalization/incarceration and frustration with legal processes” in trying to be released.
Ten years ago, though, two psychiatrists — one from the prosecution, another from Bentley’s defense — agreed that Bentley was mentally incompetent and should be committed to the Department of Mental Health.
According to one psychologist, Bentley thought he was one of seven people chosen by God to have a “special role” in the end of the world, “and he is not certain which side he is on, either Satan’s or God’s side.”
He dreamed about killing people, according to a psychologist, and had difficulties separating those dreams from reality.
His case took a number of twists through the court system.
Bentley’s jury convicted him of capital murder in 2002 despite the psychologists’ testimony.
Two years later, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his conviction, ruling that then-Circuit Judge Herman Thomas made a mistake in ordering a third psychologist to examine Bentley when the prosecution and defense experts had already agreed that he was mentally incompetent.
The third psychologist had said Bentley was mentally competent at the time of the killing and was capable of standing trial.
The case was sent back to Mobile County Circuit Court, and Bentley was found not guilty of capital murder by reason of mental disease or mental defect. He was ordered to Taylor Hardin in 2005.
Rich said the two psychologists who originally testified in the case will return to the courtroom this month as prosecution witnesses. The two, she said, will testify that Bentley still sees demons, hears voices and is still a danger to the public.
Rich said that Bentley began mutilating and torturing animals when he was 9 years old, and since being in custody, he has assaulted patients and staff. He just finished a month in solitary confinement, she said.
“You cannot cure someone of delusional disorder and psychosis,” Rich said.
In 2010, Bentley was convicted of assault for punching an officer who was trying to pull Bentley out of a violent episode with another patient, according to court records.
“He’s got a lot of classic indicators that he may even be a potential serial killer,” Rich added. “He does not deserve another opportunity to commit the horrific acts that he committed.”
In a recorded confession just after his arrest, Bentley told investigators that he and Kabat had hitched a ride to New Orleans from North Carolina in late 1999, and they soon found themselves down and out in Biloxi. They stayed in cheap motels and drank beer, and by New Year’s Eve, they’d decided to steal a car.
“I’d already planned that we were gonna get a car,” Bentley said. “And then, of course, I thought about what to do with the individual. And I figured, kill’im. I’ve wanted to kill somebody for some years, anyway...: Just to see what it was like ... the thrill.”
The hearing is scheduled for Jan. 26 at Mobile Government Plaza.
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