Mental Evaluation

A 79-year-old man accused of killing his wife and eating some of her flesh before he was found sitting in a rocking chair in their Shrewsbury apartment has died. Prosecutors said Saturday that Jieming Liu died at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. Tim Connolly, spokesman for Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early, said he did not have information on when Liu died, the cause of death and circumstances surrounding the passing. Liu appeared disoriented and was wearing a white jumpsuit with no shoes when he was arraigned on April 16. He was sent...

A 79-year-old man accused of killing his wife and eating some of her flesh before he was found sitting in a rocking chair in their Shrewsbury apartment has died. Prosecutors said Saturday that Jieming Liu died at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. Tim Connolly, spokesman for Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early, said he did not have information on when Liu died, the cause of death and circumstances surrounding the passing. Liu appeared disoriented and was wearing a white jumpsuit with no shoes when he was arraigned on April 16. He was sent...

CLEARWATER, Fla. - An 11-year-old Florida girl and her 15-year-old boyfriend are accused of plotting to kill the girl’s mother by setting her bedroom on fire while the woman slept yesterday, police said. Samantha Broadhead and Jack Ault have been charged with attempted murder and arson after the fire in Clearwater, about 20 miles west of Tampa on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Clearwater Police Department detectives say the young couple poured gasoline on Nancy Broadhead’s bedroom floor and bed, and then set the room aflame.

WESTBOROUGH - On a sunny afternoon this week, Yening Zhou entered his parents' apartment to check in on them, as he did every day at the same time. His mother, Yuee Zhou, had recently confided in him that she was concerned about her husband's behavior. Although he had not been clinically diagnosed with dementia, Jieming Liu, shaky and frail at 79, exhibited the symptoms, and family members were convinced he was afflicted by the disease. In November, Liu and his wife left their life in Hunan Province in China and moved to a small apartment in Shrewsbury, so their son, who lives...

WEBSTER, N.Y. - A 15-year-old boy poured gasoline throughout his home and set it ablaze early yesterday, killing his adoptive father and two brothers, police said. Michael Pilato, a high school sophomore, was charged with second-degree murder and arson hours after the 1 a.m. fire at a two-story house adorned with holiday lights in Webster, a Rochester suburb. Investigators said Pilato admitted he "poured gasoline throughout the interior of the residence" and set it on fire with the intention of causing deaths.

PALMDALE, Calif. — The leader of a breakaway religious sect was hospitalized yesterday for a mental evaluation, after she and 12 other members of her group went missing and left behind evidence that they were awaiting the Rapture or some other catastrophic event. Reyna Marisol Chicas was placed under a 72-hour mandatory hold after it was determined she was not able to care for herself or others, said a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy. Chicas gave investigators a false name and was rambling during questioning, the deputy said.

PROVO, Utah - A couple accused of kidnapping their daughter on the eve of her wedding pleaded guilty yesterday to a reduced charge and a judge ordered mental-health professionals to evaluate them for actions he called "clearly irrational. " Julia Redd, 58, and husband Lemuel Redd, 60, pleaded guilty to custodial interference, a misdemeanor, capping the legal end of a family spat over their daughter Julianna's choice for a husband. The plea spared them jail time. A judge immediately sentenced the parents to three years of probation and ordered them to pay $2,000, the cost of a...

FORT WORTH, Texas - A US Army psychiatrist who may face the death penalty after the mass shooting at Fort Hood was charged yesterday with 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder relating to the scores of soldiers and two civilian police officers injured in the attack, military officials said. Major Nidal Hasan has already been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder after the Nov. 5 shooting in a building at the Texas Army post where soldiers must go before being deployed.

OSLO - Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik belongs in psychiatric care instead of prison, Norwegian prosecutors said yesterday after a mental evaluation declared him legally insane during a bomb-and-shooting rampage that killed 77 people. The court-ordered assessment found that the self-styled anti-Muslim militant was psychotic during the July 22 attacks, which would make him mentally unfit to be convicted and imprisoned for the country's worst peacetime massacre. The report, written by two psychiatrists who spent 36 hours...

A Delaware man who pleaded guilty last year to larceny and identity fraud for crafting an elaborate web of lies to con his way into Harvard University was ordered yesterday to undergo a mental evaluation after a judge said he appears to be mentally ill. "It appears that Mr. Wheeler suffers from a mental illness, and the conduct for which he stands convicted is a product of that mental illness," said Woburn Superior Court Judge Diane Kottmyer....

WEBSTER, N.Y. - A 15-year-old boy poured gasoline throughout his home and set it ablaze early yesterday, killing his adoptive father and two brothers, police said. Michael Pilato, a high school sophomore, was charged with second-degree murder and arson hours after the 1 a.m. fire at a two-story house adorned with holiday lights in Webster, a Rochester suburb. Investigators said Pilato admitted he "poured gasoline throughout the interior of the residence" and set it on fire with the intention of causing deaths.

OSLO - Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik belongs in psychiatric care instead of prison, Norwegian prosecutors said yesterday after a mental evaluation declared him legally insane during a bomb-and-shooting rampage that killed 77 people. The court-ordered assessment found that the self-styled anti-Muslim militant was psychotic during the July 22 attacks, which would make him mentally unfit to be convicted and imprisoned for the country's worst peacetime massacre. The report, written by two psychiatrists who spent 36 hours talking to...

A Delaware man who pleaded guilty last year to larceny and identity fraud for crafting an elaborate web of lies to con his way into Harvard University was ordered yesterday to undergo a mental evaluation after a judge said he appears to be mentally ill. "It appears that Mr. Wheeler suffers from a mental illness, and the conduct for which he stands convicted is a product of that mental illness," said Woburn Superior Court Judge Diane Kottmyer....

PALMDALE, Calif. — The leader of a breakaway religious sect was hospitalized yesterday for a mental evaluation, after she and 12 other members of her group went missing and left behind evidence that they were awaiting the Rapture or some other catastrophic event. Reyna Marisol Chicas was placed under a 72-hour mandatory hold after it was determined she was not able to care for herself or others, said a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy. Chicas gave investigators a false name and was rambling during questioning, the deputy said.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - An 11-year-old Florida girl and her 15-year-old boyfriend are accused of plotting to kill the girl’s mother by setting her bedroom on fire while the woman slept yesterday, police said. Samantha Broadhead and Jack Ault have been charged with attempted murder and arson after the fire in Clearwater, about 20 miles west of Tampa on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Clearwater Police Department detectives say the young couple poured gasoline on Nancy Broadhead’s bedroom floor and bed, and then set the room aflame.

FORT WORTH, Texas - A US Army psychiatrist who may face the death penalty after the mass shooting at Fort Hood was charged yesterday with 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder relating to the scores of soldiers and two civilian police officers injured in the attack, military officials said. Major Nidal Hasan has already been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder after the Nov. 5 shooting in a building at the Texas Army post where soldiers must go before being deployed.