Was the suspect in a racially motivated stabbing insane? A Columbus jury must decide

Psychologists offered opposing opinions Thursday in the jury trial of a Black man who stabbed a white store worker in an unprovoked assault here in 2020.

As trial neared a close, a Columbus jury will have to decide whether the defendant suffered a delusional compulsion when he attacked an AutoZone store employee.

Jayvon Rayshawn Hatchett’s attorney has argued his client is innocent by reason of insanity, and was driven by anger and paranoia to stab worker Michael Hunt seven times in the AutoZone at 950 32nd St., on August 25, 2020.

Hatchett afterward told police he attacked the first white person he saw after viewing videos related to the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, Wis.

To bolster Hatchett’s claims, public defender Steve Craft had forensic psychologist Christina Gliser evaluate his client, and called her to testify to her findings.

Gliser said she found that Hatchett had a schizoaffective disorder related to bipolar depression, and acted under paranoid delusions regarding conspiracy theories involving the Freemasons and so-called “illuminati,” believing they targeted Black men.

She said she interviewed both Hatchett and his family, and she listed a range of hardships he had endured:

• He was the oldest of seven children, who grew up in a poor neighborhood plagued by drugs and violence.

• He was abused as a child by an alcoholic father who extinguished cigarettes on his nose.

• He was sexually abused by a cousin over two years.

• His mother dated another abusive man when Hatchett was 12 or 13, and he witnessed more domestic violence.

• He got a sexually transmitted disease when he was 17 or 18, and was treated for it twice.

• While living with a grandmother in Macon, in 2018, he thought she was trying to poison him with tapeworms, and started eating garlic daily.

• He also began staying up all night, talking to himself, and trying to break into houses during the day.

• He got no mental health treatment until after he was jailed in Hunt’s assault.

She testified that Hatchett’s viewing violent videos, combined with his belief in conspiracies, triggered the delusion that drove him to attack Hunt.

That Hatchett was coherent enough to walk into the AutoZone and tell Hunt his car was overheating, to draw Hunt close to him before stabbing Hunt from behind, was not evidence that he was sane, she said: “Mentally ill people do purposeful things all the time,” she said.

Similarly, the fact that Hatchett afterward ran home, washed the knife and burned his clothes was not evidence that he was acting rationally out of a consciousness of guilt, she said. He viewed burning his clothes as a “blood sacrifice” in keeping with the delusion he was under, she said.

Cross-examining Gliser, District Attorney Stacey Jackson elicited testimony that she found nothing to document Hatchett had ever been diagnosed or treated for a mental illness before the stabbing.

Jackson maintains Hatchett began claiming he suffered from delusions only after the assault in order to justify his insanity defense.

State’s psychologist disagrees

Jackson called psychologist John Parmer to counter Gliser’s testimony.

Parmer said Hatchett was exaggerating symptoms, claiming he saw horns protruding from Hunt’s head, during the attack, and that he saw horns on other white men’s heads, including Parmer’s.

Hatchett’s claims of having symptoms of mental illness grew increasingly detailed and ostentatious, after his arrest, going back to his childhood, when he said he saw ghosts and other illusions, Palmer testified.

The psychologist concluded Hatchett was presenting a layman’s view of what he thought his claimed illness should look like.

Parmer said Hatchett knew stabbing Hunt was wrong, and was not insane at the time.

Neither Jackson nor Craft presented any additional evidence Thursday, as they prepared to make closing arguments that afternoon.

Other charges

Charged with aggravated assault and using a knife to commit a crime, Hatchett faces up to 25 years in prison, if convicted on both counts.

But he still has a murder case pending, in the later death of a white cellmate in the Muscogee County Jail, which authorities also claim was racially motivated.

Hatchett, who was 19 at the time, is accused of killing 39-year-old Eddie Nelson Jr., the following Sept. 5, when a corrections officer saw Hatchett kneeling on Nelson with his hands around Nelson’s neck.

Nelson could not be resuscitated, and was pronounced dead from strangulation around 2:30 a.m., authorities said.

Hatchett faces life in prison if convicted of murder.

Nelson’s death led to a federal lawsuit against the city government, as his family has claimed jail workers were negligent in allowing Hatchett to be housed with white inmates. The suit claims the jail staff were “deliberately indifferent” to the risk Hatchett posed, in violation of the 14th Amendment.

The lawsuit currently is on appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.