Pittsburgh synagogue shooter 'actively attempted to present himself as less ill,' psychiatrist says

The man who killed 11 people at a Squirrel Hill synagogue nearly five years ago doesn’t want people to think he’s mentally ill.

So much so, a psychiatrist testified Thursday, that when experts questioning Robert Bowers about his alleged delusions have implied that his thoughts are bizarre, he retracts them.

“The evidence that has emerged that he actively attempted to present himself as less ill is overwhelming,” said Dr. George Corvin, who practices in Raleigh, N.C. “It’s everywhere.”

Corvin, who will return to the witness stand Friday, was asked by Bowers’ defense attorneys to determine if their client has a diagnosable mental illness and, if so, what impact any such illness had in possibly mitigating the sentence he faces for his crimes.

Certified in general and forensic psychiatry, Corvin told the jury Thursday that he diagnosed the defendant with schizophrenia continuous, and that the illness for Bowers is marked by delusions and a lack of insight that he is sick.

Two previous defense experts also diagnosed Bowers with schizophrenia. A psychiatrist called as an expert for the prosecution testified that he believes Bowers has schizoid personality disorder, which is on the same spectrum but does not include delusions.

“He does not want to be seen as mentally ill,” Corvin said. “He wants the opposite of that.”

Bowers, 50, of Baldwin, was found guilty on June 16 of killing 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

The victims 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.

They worshiped at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill, which housed the Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha, Dor Hadash and New Light congregations.

Thursday’s testimony marked the 33rd day of Bowers’ trial, which is in the sentencing phase.

Testimony could end as soon as Friday, which, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Colville said, could lead to closing arguments early next week.

The government is seeking the death penalty.

Corvin testified on Thursday as a key witness in the defense case for mitigation — the attempt by Bowers’ attorneys to convince the jury to spare his life.

As part of his work, Corvin reviewed 27,000 pages of medical, mental health, legal and familial records.

He also spent nearly 39 hours talking to Bowers over 10 sessions from October 2021 through June.

“Talking to Mr. Bowers is a tiring, difficult, painstaking process,” Corvin said.

The defendant came to his interviews with Corvin with a list of topics written down because it is difficult for Bowers to initiate conversations, he said.

“It’s like he has to plan out a conversation with a human being,” Corvin said.

He noted during their time spent together that Bowers can fixate on certain topics — called perseveration — and talk incessantly, particularly when speaking about his mother, trucking and his experience with computers.

Corvin, who spoke to the jury in an easy-to-understand, conversational tone, told the jury that one of the topics that the defendant fixates on is the fact his mother gave him two middle names and that when he got his commercial driver’s license, they didn’t fit on it.

“He thought that ruined his life,” he said.

Corvin told the jury that Bowers gets preoccupied with intrusive thoughts and becomes visibly upset sometimes — on one occasion to the point of tears.

“He can’t understand why nobody else agrees with him, why nobody can see the reality,” Corvin said.

Previous defense experts testified that Bowers’ antisemitic beliefs — including that Jews are trying to dilute the white race — are delusional, while government experts said that those beliefs are widespread in a substantial portion of American society and therefore cannot be characterized as delusions.

Corvin has not yet directly addressed the defendant’s antisemitic thoughts. But he did testify that Bowers has delusional beliefs connected to his crime, as well as others that are not related.

He recounted them for the jury:

• When Bowers worked at Potomac Bakery in Dormont and lived in an apartment above it in the 1990s, he used to keep a shotgun by the front door, a coworker told investigators, in case the “U.N. blue hats” attacked him.

• After his arrest, the defendant said that the red dye from his Butler County Prison uniform was leaching into his bloodstream and coming out in his identification bracelet.

• He believes that the salt packets he gets in prison have improved his ability to think and concentrate, so much so he told Corvin he believed he could put a pen in each of his hands and write simultaneously.

• He believed there was a ghost in his apartment who broke light bulbs on Sundays.

However, Corvin noted that Bowers has since denied making the statement about the shotgun and the blue hats. In the case of the dye, Bowers recanted what he’d said after one of the other mental health experts in the case implied that thought was crazy, Corvin said.

“What’s important to him is his often erroneous, weird, false interpretation of things, which reinforces his overall delusional fixation,” he said.

Corvin told the jury that delusions are impacted by a person’s environment and influences.

“You begin to see things that reinforce your delusion,” he said.

Bowers also has a “strikingly severe” inability to read people, Corvin said.

While people with schizophrenia often have a flat affect — like Bowers has been said to have — they also can have difficulty interpreting tone of voice, a person’s manner and facial expressions.

During their conversations, Corvin told the jury, he often said things that were off-putting, offensive and patently false.

But Bowers never recognized that was the case.

“The way he communicates with you is the way schizophrenics communicate,” Corvin said. “It is not a healthy relationship, it is not a normal relationship.

“He can’t do that. He doesn’t do that.”

During his work on the case, Corvin also spoke with Bowers’ maternal aunt and his mother, Barbara Bolt, who has been treated for depression.

He shared an anecdote from Bowers’ aunt when she took him as an infant to the mall. When they got home, Bolt became convinced that Bowers was not her son — that he had been switched.

During one of his interviews with Bolt, Corvin said she told him that she is still 66% sure that Bowers is not her child.

In his interviews with Bolt, the psychiatrist said that she spent a considerable amount of time expressing shame and regret as a parent, saying that the attack on the synagogue was her fault.

Earlier Thursday, two federal prison experts testified about the types of conditions Bowers could expect to face if he receives a sentence of life in prison with no possibility of release.

Maureen Baird, who retired as a federal prison warden in 2016 after a 27-year career, and Janet Purdue, who retired in 2022, told the jury it was almost certain that the defendant would be ordered to serve his time at the federal Bureau of Prisons’ only super-maximum security facility, ADX, in Florence, Colorado.

They based their opinion on the widespread publicity associated with the crime, as well as the fact that it was a religious hate crime, potentially jeopardizing Bowers’ safety.

“He may become the target of other inmates,” Purdue said. “I think inmates would not take so kindly to him in an open population.”

Baird, who began her testimony on Wednesday, described harsh, solitary conditions at ADX.

She told the jury that an inmate like Bowers would only be out of his cell one to two hours a day, and even during recreation, he’d be in a locked cage by himself. He would eat all of his meals in his single cell, and phone calls and visits would be limited and highly regulated.

But during cross-examination Thursday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Vasquez Schmitt, Baird admitted there are step-down programs at ADX that allow inmates to earn additional privileges for good behavior.

Those could include more phone calls, recreation and out-of-cell time, playing bingo and trivia.

Inmates at ADX also are permitted to have books and magazines and photos in their cell, as well as approved materials for hobbies and crafts.

There is even a creative arts program in which inmates who make art can have it sold at a local center, with a chance of earning up to 50% of the sale price, up to $100.

In the future, Baird said, inmates at ADX are expected to get electronic tablets with games, music and programming on them. They might even get betta fish to have as pets in their cells, Vasquez Schmitt said.

Baird said providing activities and resources for inmates contributes to institutional security.

“It’s really for the safety of staff,” she said. “If inmates have something to occupy their time, it makes staff safer.”

As Schmitt began her cross-examination, she called into question Baird’s qualifications to talk about ADX. She noted that Baird had never worked there, only ever classified two inmates to serve time there more than a decade ago, and hadn’t been to the facility until she was working on the Bowers case and took a tour.

Baird also told the jury about a high-security, adult alternative housing program at ADX for inmates 50 and older. In that program, participants can have recreation with up to seven other inmates, have up to five phone calls per month, and be eligible for email.

According to statistics introduced by the prosecution, ADX can hold as many as 563 inmates and has a current population of 328.

Of those, only 10% were direct commitments, meaning they were classified by the Bureau of Prisons to serve their sentences there. The rest were moved there after committing acts of violence while incarcerated at other federal facilities.

Throughout cross-examination, Vasquez Schmitt attempted to show the jury that Baird could not be sure that Bowers would even be ordered to ADX.

According to Vasquez Schmitt, the Bureau of Prisons has a central inmate monitoring system that tracks things such as widespread publicity, like in the Bowers case.

In the entire federal prison system, there are 228 inmates with that classification and only 18 of them are housed at ADX, the prosecutor said.