Pittsburgh synagogue attacker was not delusional, did not have schizophrenia, prosecution witness says

The man who killed 11 people at a Squirrel Hill synagogue told a government expert in behavioral neurology six weeks ago that if he could do it all over again, he would have done more research prior to the attack to ensure there were more victims.

Dr. Ryan Darby, who directs the frontotemporal dementia clinic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said that after reviewing Robert Bowers’ medical records, brain imaging and extensive reports in the case, he found no evidence of delusions or seizures.

The defendant, Darby said, does not have schizophrenia or epilepsy and shows no signs of impairment in executive function. There also was no evidence of impulsivity or emotional disregulation.

“It did not appear he had any difficulty with executive function while planning the attack or with motivation in planning the attack,” Darby said. “This was not impulsive. He denied feeling confused.

“He felt calm, focused and goal-directed.”

Darby, who was retained by the federal government to evaluate Bowers, testified as the first government witness in rebuttal to five experts called by the defense over the past week.

He will return to the witness stand for cross-examination on Thursday.

Bowers, 50, of Baldwin was convicted June 16 of all 63 federal counts against him, including that he killed 11 people who were members of the Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha, Dor Hadash and New Light congregations on Oct. 27, 2018.

Those killed included Rose Mallinger, 97; Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; brothers David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59; Dan Stein, 71; Irving Younger, 69; Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; Joyce Fienberg, 75; Melvin Wax, 87; and Richard Gottfried, 65.

The trial is now in the eligibility phase of sentencing, during which the jury must decide whether Bowers is eligible for the death penalty. To do so, they must find unanimously that the defendant had the requisite intent to kill.

Bowers’ defense attorneys have argued that he has schizophrenia, epilepsy and other brain dysfunction that made it impossible for him to form that intent.

For five days, defense witnesses testified about mental health problems Bowers has suffered for most of his life. They have said that an MRI, PET scan and EEG show evidence that he has schizophrenia and epilepsy and abnormalities in the structure of his brain.

Darby disagreed with all of those findings.

He spent more than three hours examining the defendant on May 21, during which, he said, Bowers was calm and cooperative and willing to answer his questions.

The defendant described his planning in carrying out the attack and talked about specifically targeting Dor Hadash for its work with HIAS, formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

Bowers became animated when he talked about topics he was interested in.

“He wanted to talk about Jews, immigration and the Great Replacement theory,” Darby said.

When the defendant talked about choosing to attack the synagogue, he called it a “higher-yield target.”

“Those were the defendant’s words,” Darby said. “That it would have more impact. There would be more victims, and it’s a place of worship. It would make a bigger statement.”

In his evaluation, Darby said Bowers denied having problems with impulse control or paranoia. He also denied having hallucinations or seizures and denied he was being persecuted by anyone.

Darby said one notable abnormality on the brain imaging was found on Bowers’ MRI. Although they can be linked with schizophrenia, Darby told jurors that white-matter hyperintensities detected are most likely a result of vascular disease, which can be impacted by high blood pressure, smoking and high cholesterol.

He said the hyperintensities, or lesions, are very common.

In his interview with the defendant, Darby said Bowers described his relationship with his mother as very difficult in childhood — though it stabilized in adulthood.

Records from Children and Youth Services showed that the agency was involved with Bowers’ parents when he was just 6 months old.

Darby testified that the records showed there was evidence of suicidal threats and violent gestures by both parents.

His mother kicked down the door to their apartment and threatened to throw the infant Bowers out a window, while his father, who killed himself a few years later, threatened to turn on the gas in the stove to kill himself and the baby, Darby said.

At age 10, he continued, Bowers talked about throwing himself off a bluff and attempted suicide at age 17 by overdosing on over-the-counter medication.

Bowers told Darby that during his childhood, he was interested in computers, cars and guns. He liked to light fires and taught himself to make bombs. He would go with friends to a junkyard to blow things up, the witness said.

He said he never targeted animals or people, Darby testified.

In adulthood, Bowers worked for several years as a long-haul truck driver and was on the road for six days at a time. He also worked for 14 years at a bakery, Darby said.

Darby testified that an employee at that bakery told the FBI that he remembered Bowers talking about a threat from U.N. security forces potentially entering his house to “come for him.” That employee told the FBI that Bowers kept a shotgun by the front door to protect himself.

He called them the “blue hats,” Darby said.

After he was fired from the bakery for stealing money in 2004, Bowers was going to be evicted from his apartment above the business, Darby said. It was then that he put a shotgun in his mouth and said he was suicidal “so he could go to a psychiatric hospital for a few days and figure things out.”

As an adult, Darby said, Bowers’ interests turned to politics and, in 2016, to church. The defendant noted that many conservatives were Christian, so he pursued religion and started reading the Bible.

Bowers later began to investigate conspiracies about Jewish people online, including watching YouTube videos and eventually going to the social media website Gab.com. He believed that Jews were orchestrating an effort to undermine white culture and white nations.

“He became increasingly concerned these ideas were accurate,” Darby said. “He saw himself as a soldier in that war, as he described it.”

Darby also testified that Bowers’ belief in the end times and Great Replacement theory are unrelated, and that neither of those represent delusional thinking by Bowers.

“My opinion, they are not delusional, nor the result of neurological disease,” Darby said.

Darby also discounted what defense experts characterized as a delusion — when Bowers said dye from his uniform at the Butler County Prison was leaching into his skin and out into his identification band.

On cross-examination by defense attorney Michael Burt, the witness said that a delusion is not a learned belief but something that is generated by the person’s own mind by the neurological disorder itself.

In Bowers’ case, that’s not what happened. Instead, he formed his beliefs through online research and other sources. He also said he did not feel personally targeted. Therefore, Darby said, they aren’t delusions.

Burt, who spent three hours cross-examining the witness, repeatedly questioned Darby about his qualifications to make such a determination and specifically whether he is an expert in schizophrenia or delusions.

Darby admitted that he is not and does not primarily treat patients with schizophrenia in his clinical practice, which takes up about 20% of his time.

He said he does evaluate delusions in neurological patients.

During cross-examination, Burt also spent time going over how much Darby was being paid for his testimony and how he came to be a consultant for the government on the case.

Darby testified that he had spent about 150 hours working on it at a rate of $350 per hour. He was hired through his relationship with Dr. Park Dietz, known for evaluating John Hinckley Jr. for the federal government following the 1981 assassination attempt on former President Ronald Reagan.

Dietz also is expected to testify for the government in rebuttal.

It was the first time through all of the expert testimony in the trial that the issue of fees has been raised. The government never asked that question of any of the defense experts when they testified.