CONWAY -- The man charged with attempted capital murder in a Feb. 1 shooting at a Wal-Mart Supercenter is not fit to stand trial and talks of seeing and hearing zombies who give him orders, a psychologist for the State Hospital has found.
As a result, Myron Terrell, 30, of Conway will spend the next 10 months at the State Hospital, where he will be evaluated daily, Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland said Wednesday.
After that time, Terrell, who was a maintenance employee at the Wal-Mart on Skyline Drive, will be evaluated again to determine if he is then fit to stand trial, Hiland said.
Defense attorney Karen Walker-Knight was in court Wednesday, her office said. She did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.
"[Terrell] indicated that he began hearing voices 'right after college' and hears them 'all day long,'" forensic psychologist Lacey Willett wrote in an evaluation, filed in Faulkner County Circuit Court on June 20.
"He explained, 'It's dead people. Like, they try to control me. ... they don't control me but they try to tell me what to do,'" Willett wrote.
Terrell is awaiting trial in the shooting of a Wal-Mart customer, Lori Martin, who was in a checkout lane with her husband when she was shot. Terrell is charged with attempted capital murder, simultaneous possession of drugs and a firearm, and marijuana possession with the purpose to deliver.
Terrell also talked about past psychiatric hospitalizations, Willett reported.
"'They only really kept me for like a whole day. I was kinda like dead and they were like zombies so I thought they were dead people too,'" Terrell reportedly said, referring to hospital staff.
Terrell mentioned Martin, "'the b**** I shot up,'" and said that she had "'approached me with black eyeballs before.'"
Terrell then talked about seeing a creature, apparently another time, but said he wasn't sure if it was the Wal-Mart victim: "'It had a shaved head. ... looked like it was a corpse full of demons.'"
Willett diagnosed Terrell with bipolar schizoaffective disorder, which involves schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations, and mood-disorder symptoms. Willett also diagnosed Terrell with malingering, which refers to faking or exaggerating symptoms.
But Willett wrote, "Despite Mr. Terrell's attempts to feign or exaggerate psychopathology throughout the evaluation, it is my opinion that he is not fit to proceed to trial at this time due to mental disease" observed during the examination and other information, which included interviews with relatives and Terrell's former co-workers.
Wal-Mart employees told Willett that they had observed Terrell talking to himself on multiple occasions, shouting, "'I'm not gay, I'm not gay,'" to himself in a break room, talking about "'the great prostitute'" to a co-worker on the day of the shooting and other odd behavior. He also had told the co-worker that his mother was "'the great prostitute in the book of Revelation,'" Willett wrote.
"Although he may have feigned or exaggerated some symptoms of psychosis during the current evaluation, there is considerable evidence to suggest that he also experiences legitimate symptoms of mental illness," Willett wrote. "Of note, it is not uncommon for persons with legitimate serious mental illness to also engage in feigning of symptoms, and in such cases a single contact with the defendant can yield erroneous results."
Terrell's mother told Willett that Terrell had been prescribed mediation for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in California and that he was placed in a jail's psychiatric unit there. She said her son often got upset with her "because she could not see or hear the dead people 'messing with him,'" Willett wrote.
The mother also reported that Terrell wants to try out for the New York Knicks after he gets out of jail.
The evaluation did not address his mental state at the time of the shooting.
State Desk on 06/26/2014