Because of his mental disorders or conditions, he did not have the mental capacity for specific intent.”

Dr. Wade Myers

NEWPORT — A psychiatrist testified in Newport Superior Court Thursday that Christopher R. James was acting with “diminished capacity” when he stabbed his ex-wife, Terry Chiodo of Portsmouth, aboard a RIPTA bus in February 2013. 

The defense doesn’t deny that Mr. James stabbed Ms. Chiodo, who later died at Rhode Island Hospital, but is trying to establish that the defendant suffered from mental health issues so severe at the time of the attack that he could not have acted with premeditated first- or second-degree murder as the prosecution claims.

Dr. Wade Myers, a specialist in forensic and child psychiatry who’s testified in about 500 previous court cases and depositions, sahiid he interviewed and conducted a psychiatric evaluation and testing of Mr. James, now 49, during three separate jail visits in 2014. 

The doctor said he based his opinion on those examinations as well as a review of police accounts and the videotape of Mr. James’ interrogation, grand jury testimony and past medical records from hospitals and jails. He also interviewed Mr. James’ sister, Vanessa, who confirmed the many instances of child abuse suffered by her brother, Dr. Myers said.

“He has serious trauma symptoms that he’s been suffering, from many examples of child abuse,” said Dr. Meyers, who’s also the director of the Forensic Psychology Division at Hasbro Children’s Hospital and a Brown University professor.

Dr. Meyers detailed a litany of issues Mr. James suffered that he maintained added up to a confused and troubled mind the morning of Feb. 27, 2013, when the defendant stabbed his ex-wife aboard a RIPTA bus in Portsmouth.

First off, Mr. James suffered physical abuse as a child at the hands of a brother, uncle and his mother, a fact that was confirmed by his sister, according to the doctor. He also witnessed his 11-year-old brother get hit by a fire truck, an accident which broke his sibling’s leg and further traumatized him, said Dr. Meyers.

His childhood trauma brought about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Mr. James, who was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1997, the doctor said.

Mr. James also suffers from depression and is a longtime alcoholic, he said. In addition, he has sustained numerous brain injuries due to physical altercations, including a bar fight that landed him in an emergency room and another scrap in which he was hit on the head with a pipe, Dr. Meyers said. 

He’s also been HIV positive since 1999, a diagnosis that for some people can lead to problems with memory, concentration and even dementia, the doctor said.

The psychiatrist also said the defendant shows signs of “hypervigilance,” an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity marked by increased anxiety. That partly explains why he boarded the RPITA bus with a knife, he said.

“For a long time he’s carried a knife on himself wherever he goes out of the house because of this persistent feeling that he’s unsafe,” said Dr. Meyers.

The night before

As the defense team argued during opening statements, Dr. Meyers said everything came to a head the night before the stabbing, when Mr. James drank heavy amounts of liquor on no sleep and decided he wanted to share some good news with his his ex-wife.

“He was quoting different parts of the Bible by verse and chapter,” said Dr. Meyers of the defendant’s writings at the time, which were full of “grandiose ideas.” Mr. James, he said, was suffering from hypomania when he had an “epiphany” that he would enter rehab and get back together with Ms. Chiodo, despite her own feelings to the contrary.

So on the night of Feb. 26, 2013, Mr. James took a bus to the Subway in Newport where Ms. Chiodo worked, only to learn she was not there. (The prosecution earlier called Derek Savas, owner of the restaurant, and showed a video of Mr. James talking with an employee behind the counter for a few minutes before departing.)

The next morning, Mr. James boarded the bus again for his fateful meeting with Ms. Chiodo. 

Assistant public defender Sarah Potter asked the psychiatrist that due to Mr. James’ mental state, his drinking and the fact he had been up for three days straight, could the killing have been pre-meditated?

No, the doctor said. “Because of his mental disorders or conditions, he did not have the mental capacity for specific intent,” said Dr. Meyers.

Intoxication debated

When and to what degree Mr. James was intoxicated around the time of the attack seems to have been a point of contention during Thursday’s session. During the defense’s question of Dr. Meyers on this point there were several objections from the prosecution along with sidebars to the judge’s bench.

Dr. Meyers said the defendant told him that between the night of Feb. 26 and the around 4:30 a.m. on Feb. 27, he had consumed “two pints” of hard liquor and four to five beers. 

During a lengthy cross-examination of Dr. Meyers, Special Assistant Attorney General John E. Corrigan pressed the psychiatrist on Mr. James’ ability to reason, despite his mental disorders and other issues he was dealing with on the day of the stabbing.

Taking the bus at Kennedy Plaza in Providence, said Mr. Corrigan, “took a cognitive process as well as a volitional process.”

Dr. Meyer agreed. 

“He didn’t get there by accident. He got there on purpose,” said Mr. Corrigan.

“He was going to see Ms. Chiodo,” replied Dr. Meyers.

“Thank you, doctor. He had a plan that morning,” the prosecutor said.

Mr. Corrigan also grilled Dr. Meyers on a “trauma symptom inventory” exam he gave the defendant, which is typically used for people with PTSD. The prosecutor pointed out that the doctor deemed the results of the exam “invalid” because it displayed extreme degrees of symptoms. Mr. Corrigan suggested that Mr. James was exaggerating his trauma during the exam. 

Dr. Meyers said the results could suggest either a cry for help from Mr. James or that he was indeed suffering from extreme examples of PTSD trauma.

The prosecutor also questioned Dr. Meyers about a reported suicide attempt by Mr. James when he was in prison in 1991. The defendant was found by another inmate on the foot of the prison chapel with “superficial” wounds, said Mr. Corrigan. 

“This incident was deemed as manipulative on (Mr. James’s) part,” said Mr. Corrigan, noting that the defendant requested the chaplain to explain what had happened to his wife.

Dr. Meyers confirmed that was the case.

Text messages reviewed

Before the prosecution rested its case Thursday, the defense cross-examined Kevin Harris, a former member of the State Police Computer Crimes Division, who examined the contents of a Blackberry phone that was confiscated from Mr. James by Portsmouth Police. A day earlier, the judge had rejected an argument from the defense that the jury shouldn’t be allowed to see text messages between the defendant and Ms. Chiodo because the prosecution didn’t prove Mr. James was in possession of the phone when the texts were sent.

According to the prosecution, one of those messages, sent the night of Feb. 26 from Mr. James’s phone to Ms. Chiodo’s, reads: “Consider yourself dead. You’ll never see your grandkids grow.”

Mr. Harris also examined another phone owned by Mr. James as well as two others by Ms. Chiodo. However, he was unable to get full extractions from those phones, he testified.

The case will resume Friday morning.