Experts: Bay had bipolar disorder, PTSD at time of arrest

VIRGINIA BEACH

Untreated mental illness and a tumultuous childhood ultimately left Philip Bay out of touch with reality when he set out to kill at least 30 people at Landstown High School in April 2009, three expert witnesses testified Thursday in Circuit Court .

That, his lawyers say, prove that the 19-year-old defendant being tried for allegedly engineering the failed plot against his school was legally insane at the time.

Prosecutors continued to assert that Bay was a calculating manipulator who to some degree managed to fool the psychologist and two psychiatrists who evaluated him.

After three days of watching hours of homemade videos by Bay and two other teens accused in the plot, jurors listened Thursday as two licensed psychiatrists and a clinical psychologist detailed a bright and sensitive boy deeply affected by bullying and family dysfunction. Bay’s case will likely go to the jury for consideration today.

Jurors will be asked to decide whether Bay is guilty, not guilty, or not guilty by reason of insanity. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison . He would receive evaluations to determine whether he could return to society or required detention and treatment if found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Bay suffered from bipolar disorder and elements of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, child psychiatrist David Reid testified Thursday morning. The former was exacerbated by the antidepressant Prozac, which can push bipolar sufferers into manic states if not combined with a mood stabilizer, he said.

Bay was not prescribed a mood stabilizer until after his arrest in April 2009.

Bay’s father was emotionally and, at times, physically abusive – and eventually abandoned the boy, Reid testified. When Bay’s grandfather died when the boy was 6, Bay wanted to join him in heaven.

Those events, coupled with brutal bullying by classmates in elementary and middle school, contributed to PTSD, he said. Bay eventually built up “a tremendous amount of rage. You can almost think of it as a perfect storm.”

All three mental health experts told jurors that Bay believed he was an agent of God, who wanted him to attack Landstown with sawed-off shotguns and the pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails he concocted in his home.

“He was convinced that he had God on his side, and he was carrying out the will of God,” forensic psychiatrist Paul Mansheim testified. “The person does know what he’s doing and does know that it’s legally wrong but is unable to prevent himself from doing it because he’s psychotic.”

Mansheim and psychologist Weare Zwemer, who also testified Thursday, disagreed on whether Bay was driven by an “irresistible impulse,” a legal term used in an insanity defense.

Mansheim said he was.

Zwemer said Bay’s more than two years of plotting – documented in journals and hours of video the teen recorded – suggest he was not. “If there is premeditation, it would be very hard to prove irresistible impulse,” said Zwemer, who first met with the teenager in November 2009.

But Bay suffered from mental defects and believed it was his task to be the hand of God, Zwemer said, and “struggled with the idea that he had disobeyed God or let God down.”

Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Scott Lang insisted Bay told people what he thought they wanted to hear.

He expressed remorse for the plot in a note to one of his teachers seven months before he met with Zwemer, according to evidence.

Bay’s motive was revenge on a school he felt forced to attend and the students who had crossed him, Lang said. Bay had considered an insanity defense even before his arrest, based on papers found in his home. One regarding school shootings stated the importance of journals should a student shooter fail at suicide.

In video shown to jurors Bay intended to be viewed after his death, he says: “I didn’t do it because I got picked on and snapped. All you analysts and psychologists out there ... it wasn’t a disorder, it wasn’t the Prozac ... I want them dead. I want their families dead. I want them dead, OK?”

In a phone call with his mother from jail, he tells her that he wants his lawyer to have him committed to a mental institution because it is “a home away from home” and “will help my defense.”

Conflicting stories was a symptom of his mental illness, Mansheim said. “I think he thinks he can trick and fool people, but he’s not particularly good at it.”

Lang argued that Bay had done it two years before.

In a letter dated Oct. 5, 2007, Bay’s psychologist wrote a letter that he was fit to return to school after being caught with a hoax explosive device because he expressed no intent to harm himself or anyone else.

Bay already was stockpiling weapons at that time, Lang said.

Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5131, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com