PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — The trial of the Pittsburgh synagogue gunman is coming to a close, and in its final hours the two sides are focused on the central issue of Robert Bowers’ mental health and whether he should face the death penalty. 

The prosecution says he was driven by pure hate and should face the ultimate punishment. The defense maintains his life should be spared because he was in the throes of mental illness and delusion when he attacked the synagogue in 2018. 

The gunman has shown no remorse for his actions. In fact, he told others he wished he had killed more people, believing he is a saint and a martyr who did the work of God by killing Jews whom he believed were possessed by Satan. 

“He has no remorse and is unable to express remorse, because the delusions are still there, that he is saving lives, that he is living the life of a saint or a martyr and what he did wasn’t wrong,” said Dr. George Corvin, a defense psychiatrist.

That was the testimony Friday of Corvin, who said the gunman acted out of bizarre and delusional beliefs that Satan-controlled Jews were bringing immigrant invaders into the U.S. and other countries to kill white Christians. 

He said the gunman told him the attack on the synagogue was “an unfortunate but unavoidable act” in a war predicted in the end times in the Book of Revelation and he was trying to stave off the destruction of humanity.

“He said, ‘If there was a non-violent way, he would have used non-violence, but the end days must happen. The tribulation must happen. He didn’t want to do this. He had to do this. How can I turn my back on God?'”

Corvin’s testimony is at the heart of the defense case that the gunman is schizophrenic and driven by insane delusions when he planned and executed the attack, and remains delusional to this day. 

United States Attorney Eric Olshan quoted other prosecution witnesses who challenged this, saying delusions must be generated from a person’s own brain and that the gunman simply latched on to beliefs, which though disgusting, are held by other white supremacists on the web platform Gab.

“Did you know that everything he believes was on Gab?” Olshan asked. 

“There are things that are in scripture, and there are things that are on that awful website. The way he puts them together is schizophrenic,” Corvin said.  

Olshan continued to pick holes in the diagnosis of schizophrenia, pressing the government’s case that the gunman is an intelligent person driven by hate who knowingly and methodically planned and executed the attack. 

Corvin pointed to the jury and said: “It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what they think. It may not have to do with schizophrenia, but you don’t want that brain. I don’t want that brain.” 

The prosecution rested its case last week and the defense began calling witnesses to the stand. So far, they’ve focused on the family of the convicted gunman. Dr. Katherine Porterfield, an expert who is testifying about mental health issues, was on the stand Monday detailing the convicted gunman’s troubled childhood.

The defense is trying to show why his life should be spared with the jury soon to decide whether he will spend the rest of his life in prison or if he will be sentenced to death.  

Last month, Bowers was found guilty of all 63 federal charges in the attack when he shot and killed 11 worshippers from three different congregations, Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light on Oct. 27, 2018. It was the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.  

Recapping the defense’s arguments

In their final push in the penalty phase, the defense is trying to convince the jury that the convicted gunman should be spared the death penalty because of mental illness.

They have called Dr. Katherine Porterfield, a psychologist and trauma expert, to the stand. She testified that the convicted gunman’s actions stem from a family history of mental illness and abuse at the hands of his parents. 

The suspect’s father, she said, was violent and committed suicide. And she called the suspect’s mother, Barbara Bolt, a lifelong depressive who physically and mentally abused the suspect as a child. Porterfield interviewed Bolt, who bizarrely admitted to showing the child how to sexually pleasure himself and cutting herself in front of him. 

“I was a terrible mom. I did horrible things,” Porterfield quoted Bolt as saying. “I should do half the sentence. He was provoked into things.” 

Porterfield said the suspect’s childhood environment, combined with a long family history of depression, resulted in him being suicidal at the age of 10 and repeated suicide attempts throughout his teen years. As an adult, she said he became a loner without true friends. 

“He’s had a very impoverished social life, a very damaged sense of self and suicidality stemming from self-hatred,” she said. 

But under cross-examination, Porterfield — who never personally interviewed the suspect — conceded she did not include the defendant’s own statements denying the suicide attempts and that he has not been suicidal as an adult. 

Prosecutors also brought to light that the suspect had reconciled with his mother, had been a responsible employee at a local bakery and kept a tidy apartment as signs that he had adjusted.

The jury also heard from witnesses who knew the suspect as a child. 

Dennis Kavanaugh, the suspect’s fifth-grade teacher, said during a timed math quiz, the suspect “became anxious, shaking and shouting. I was surprised because he was pretty good at math, but I had to stop the class.” 

Later, Kavanaugh heard the suspect had tried to harm himself and maybe tried to kill himself, but when he put his hand on his shoulder and tried to counsel him, he said the suspect “made like he was spraying an aerosol can, getting the teacher cooties off his shoulder. I didn’t know how to break through to him.” 

The convicted gunman’s family member, Naomi Grimm, a first cousin to his mother, also took the stand.

Recapping victim impact statements

Last week, the prosecution called family members of the victims to the stand to give victim impact statements. The wife and son of victim Dan Stein took the stand; and then, Michele Rosenthal, the sister of victims David and Cecil Rosenthal, talked about her two younger brothers.

Andrea Wedner summed up the loss she feels as a pain in all the small moments when talking about her mother, Rose Mallinger. “I’m haunted by what happened to me and by what I saw and what I heard that day,” she told the jury. 

The jury also heard victim impact statements from Dan Leger, who dropped from 145 pounds on the day of the shooting down to 110 pounds in the hospital. He couldn’t even speak, and said he wrote to his wife on a piece of paper “let me go” because he thought he’d never recover from his injuries. 

The brother-in-law of Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz took the stand on Tuesday, stating how his brother-in-law just wanted to help people, which is why he got into family medicine, saying that he would even make house calls after hours. 

He added that many people in the family have changed their professions since the deadly shooting took place to do things to more directly help people, like Dr. Rabinowitz did. 

Michelle Weiss, the daughter of the slain couple Sylvan and Bernice Simon, said she spoke with her mother every day and was asked what life is like without her. 

“I lost my best friend, my confidant, lost my most important people in my life in one day,” she said. “It’s very hard for me to go on. We don’t have holidays anymore, nothing is the same.” 

Anthony Feinberg, the son of Joyce Feinberg, called his mother “the central cog” in his family who has left such a void.

In earlier testimony, Margaret Durachko, the wife of Richard Gottfried, was the first of more than 20 family members to take the stand during this phase of the trial and testified of how her whole life was turned upside down following the mass shooting at the synagogue.

Diane Rosenthal, the sister of Cecil and David Rosenthal, testified that when they were diagnosed early with fragile X syndrome, her parents insisted they be raised at home with her and her sister Michelle rather than be put in an institution. The boys, she said, were a gift with an infectious joy for life which they spread throughout the neighborhood. 

Testifying on videotape, Cecil and David Rosenthal’s mother said she thanks God for her sons and couldn’t be more proud to be their mother but now they are gone. 

Support is available for those in need during the trial

If you or someone you know is experiencing mental health effects from the trial, go to 1027healingpartnership.org to find help resources. As always, call 911 to report threats. 

Phone: 412-697-3534
Email: info@1027HealingPartnership.org
Website: 1027healingpartnership.org

More resources can be found here.

Andy Sheehan

KDKA-TV Investigator Andy Sheehan began his broadcast journalism career in September 1992, when he joined KDKA after reporting for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for nine years. Andy’s forte is the in-depth investigative story, exposing corruption and government waste.

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South & Central America Mindfulness Meditation Application

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The noon sun shines March 11, 2022, on the Linn County Mental Health Access Center in northwest Cedar Rapids. (Geoff Stellfox/The Gazette)

HIAWATHA — Mental health and disability services throughout a nine-county area in East Central Iowa will get an additional approximately $5.47 million boost after a regional board Thursday approved spending down much of its end-of-budget year surplus.

With the end of fiscal 2023 on June 30 quickly approaching, the East Central Mental Health Region governing board directed regional staff to spend the money it had in excess of the state-mandated fund balance to better support locally provided mental health services.

The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services allocates property tax dollars to regions. If regions carry too much of a surplus at the end of a budget year, the agency withholds further dollars in the next fiscal year. Local service providers within the region would then lose out on funding that could otherwise address unmet local needs.

State lawmakers require the regions to hold fund balances of no more than 20 percent. That requirement will fall to 5 percent next fiscal year.

After reaching out to providers based on priorities the board identified in May, Regional Chief Executive Officer Mae Hingtgen at the board’s meeting Thursday at the Kirkwood Regional Center came with a proposal for how to spend much of the balance. The region covers services in Benton, Bremer, Buchanan, Delaware, Dubuque, Iowa, Johnson, Jones and Linn counties.

The board voted 6-5 to approve the nearly $5.47 million in spending agreements. That included an additional $300,000 for Shelter House’s permanent supportive housing project in Iowa City, beyond what was initially proposed by Hingtgen. Linn County Supervisor Ben Rogers and Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan were among the yes votes.

Among the services that received funds were:

• $700,000 for Iowa City-based CommUnity’s crisis stabilization residential services capital project
• $41,000 for Cedar Rapids-based Tanager Place’s crisis stabilization residential services startup
• $500,000 for Foundation 2 Crisis Services’ new building in Cedar Rapids
• $124,506 for the Linn County Mental Health Access Center’s unreimbursed crisis expenses
• $504,670 for the Johnson County GuideLink Center’s unreimbursed crisis expenses
• $39,578 to Cedar Rapids-based Willis Dady Homeless Services for unreimbursed brain health services and $250,000 for permanent supportive housing
• $155,393 to the Cedar Rapids-based Catherine McAuley Center for unreimbursed brain health services
• $75,000 to Four Oaks for staff overtime expenses

Schools and sheriff’s offices also were on the list for a variety of mental health services, though not all within the region responded to inquires about their unmet needs. Schools will receive another $307,277 and sheriff’s offices will receive another $187,635 for mental health services.

That puts the region’s fund balance around 19 percent for the end of the budget year, Hingtgen said, though the actual dollar amount still needs to be calculated. That means the state wouldn’t withhold money as it has in past years that have ended with a surplus.

With the fund balance dropping next fiscal year, Hingtgen said she was somewhat worried about having enough money leftover for fiscal 2024.

As some of the factors fueling budget uncertainty, she mentioned providers were not billing the region in a timely fashion, they faced worker shortages and were sometimes unresponsive to requests for proposals when the region issues them for certain services.

Jenn Day, the board’s adult and family peer representative, said as the liaison effectively between providers and the board, she’s aware there are things providers are not sharing about their needs for fear of “retribution.”

“There is a subcurrent of intimidation between providers openly speaking their needs in a respectful manner and the region and the board responding,” Day said. “I’ve heard it put as, ‘Don’t bring up dad’s drinking and then ask for money.’”

The board is looking to improve long-term financial planning, though, and took steps to form a subcommittee focused on monitoring finances at least quarterly.

Board members supported Sullivan’s suggestion to include provider voices from the board’s advisory council to be better in tune with their needs as financial planning is done throughout the year, instead of trying to close this gap and spend surplus dollars in the final month of a budget year.

Supervisors this year have pushed to boost funding for the Linn and Johnson County mental health access centers, anticipating the region would end up holding a multimillion-dollar surplus at the end of fiscal 2023. The board passed a fiscal 2024 budget in March that devoted $2.9 million to the facilities — up from the initially proposed $2.5 million.

County officials have said regional funding and low Medicaid reimbursement rates don’t cover the cost of providing services such as access center operations. They supported better funding services such as the access centers, law enforcement, education and homeless shelters with available surplus dollars.

“I would just challenge us to keep the eye on adequately funding our highest priorities to meet their needs and maybe not be as skeptical of the way they portray their need,” Dubuque County Supervisor Ann McDonough said.

Comments: (319) 398-8494; marissa.payne@thegazette.com

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Credit: Kristy Rangel

Four-year old Scout and 12-year old Jeter are cockapoos who serve the Selma Unified School District as therapy dogs.

If students at Selma High School in Fresno County ever had to vote on their favorite things on campus, Jeter and Scout – two cockapoos – serving as Selma Unified’s therapy dogs, would be the top picks.

Since 2016, 12-year-old Jeter and 4-year-old Scout (since 2021) have played a lead role in the district’s push to destigmatize mental health issues and provide services.

They are on campus every day; during lunch, they go from table to table, interacting with students, but they seem to know where they’re needed most: the students who are sitting alone or who seem sad.

One day at lunch, as Jeter made his rounds, he gravitated to a student who had her hood over her head and just sat there with the student, refusing to leave, even when lunch ended.

Credit: Kristy Rangel

Students at Wilson Elementary participated in mental health awareness activities on Wednesday. Students are seen trying ’80s toys that can be used as coping mechanisms.

The district’s mental health team approached the student and Jeter and noticed that the student’s face was covered with tears and that she was distraught but did not feel comfortable confiding in anyone. Jeter was able to detect the student’s pain when no one else could, which led to her getting much-needed help.

Selma Unified’s lead mental health clinician, Kristy Rangel, remembers another incident when a student sat in her office but had completely shut down and refused to talk. Jeter walked over and started nudging the student with his nose, signaling to be petted. Jeter climbed into the student’s lap, and the student started crying and hugging the dog.

“Then we were able to process,” Rangel said. “It’s that comfort, that judgment-free zone.

“They (Jeter and Scout) allow people to put down their defenses and allow them to open up.”

Those are a few of the countless examples of what Rangel describes as her “co-therapists” identifying students in need of support and eliminating barriers to students opening up.

“The school’s culture wouldn’t be the same without them,” Selma High senior Adam Lanas said.

What’s happening in Selma Unified is much larger than the therapy dogs. It’s a districtwide enterprise to change the culture of mental health, so students, as well as their families, know help is available.

On May 19, about 300 Selma High School students stood in line waiting to join the school’s mental health awareness activities. In one activity, they explored the differences between thoughts and feelings: Is a statement on the spinning wheel a thought or feeling? At another station, the students created a Cares Gram — a thoughtful message for someone they care about or know they can count on. A few tables down, students wrote themselves messages on small rocks, using bright-colored pens.

Students were amazed by a table full of toys, which students can actually use to soothe their five senses: 3D Pin Art Sensory toys, Needles Fidget Palm Boards and fidget slugs for touch and kaleidoscopes and RED Classic ViewMaster 3D Viewer and Collector Reels for sight.

“This will help you stay calm,” Rangel told one student.

Before Jeter, ‘no one wanted services’

But having hundreds of students participate in raising mental health awareness wasn’t always the norm in Selma Unified schools — a nearly 6,000-student district in southeast Fresno County of the central San Joaquin Valley.

Rangel and others remembered that less than 10 years ago, no one wanted to take part in mental health activities on campus.

People didn’t acknowledge mental health, she said.

Now the perception of mental health is different. Students and staff credit the therapy dogs, Jeter and Scout, who, during the mental health activities, sat in their wagon waiting for the opportunity to take pictures with students.

Selma Unified formed its mental health team in fall 2014 with two mental health clinicians to address students’ social-emotional needs such as anxiety, depression, mental health disorders, family stressors and trauma-related experiences.

The mental health team received 32 referrals for student support services in the 2014-15 school year, and 88 in 2015-16, before Jeter came.

“No one wanted services,” Rangel said about the first few years.

Students and parents often told Rangel, “‘My kid’s not crazy. I don’t need to talk to you; I’m fine.’”

She had an idea of how to change those attitudes.

Before her time in Selma, Rangel was a forensic therapist for the Napa County juvenile justice system where they used therapy dogs to help the kids once a week after court.

“I noticed when they had the therapy dogs there, they weren’t calling me to help regulate and calm some of the youth down because the dogs were there to provide that comfort and support,” she recalled.

That’s when she and her dog, Jeter, first started training to become certified in animal-assisted psychotherapy.

When Selma Unified hired her in 2014, she suggested Jeter as a therapy dog, but the district was skeptical of the idea at first.

So Jeter worked at Valley Children’s Hospital as one of George’s Pals — dog volunteers providing animal-assisted therapy to patients.

“My big selling point to the school board was: If Valley Children’s (Hospital) trusts Jeter around their patients, why can’t we trust him around our students?” Rangel said.

At the time, other school districts had been implementing therapy dogs. Clovis Unified has used a therapy dog for several years and brings additional dogs on campus during finals week to alleviate stress as do colleges, including Sacramento State, CSU Long Beach and UC Berkeley.

Therapy dogs calm older students, help younger students acquire skills

The dogs work with the district’s mental health team to provide social and emotional learning lessons, serve as attendance incentives, respond to crises, and provide individual therapy sessions.

And with each interaction between students and the dogs, Rangel sees an impact.

To 17-year old Ronnie L., who asked not to be identified by her last name, the dogs have an unmatched “calming” presence, especially when students are upset, sad or anxious. She doesn’t bite or pick at her nails when she’s around the dogs.

“It’s comforting,” Ronnie said. “It makes you feel less tense. It’s helpful to have something to pay attention to and to smile at.”

Although based at the high school, Jeter and Scout help elementary students, too. For students who struggle with behavior issues, mental health clinicians coach them on feelings and emotions. Rangel uses Jeter or Scout in an exercise where the dogs ring a bell to answer “yes” to certain cues.

For instance, she will ask, “‘Jeter, if you are feeling sad, is it OK to talk to a trusted adult about your sadness?’ The dog would ring the bell for yes, and we will go through different feelings.”

Other games allow students to build their self-esteem by teaching the dogs tricks and identifying and discussing feelings when Jeter or Scout portray those emotions during activities.

Therapy dogs are a conversation starter, symbol to seek help

Still, services are contingent on parental consent, and Rangel explained that there are cultural, personal or religious barriers that may make parents hesitant to seek mental health services for their kids — even with Jeter and Scout involved.

The mental health team had to address those negative stigmas through student and family engagement. The district’s schools host contests challenging students to illustrate what Jeter represents and to build Jeter figures with their families.

This month, the team has organized mental health activities at each of Selma’s 10 schools.

“We’re talking openly about how everybody needs support,” Superintendent Marilyn Shepherd said.

During its mental health week, the high school had a comfort day when students could wear their pajamas and bring stuffed animals; another day was dedicated to using music as an outlet.

“Connecting something casual to these different pillars of mental health awareness is destigmatizing (mental health), and that’s what this entire month is about: being open about these feelings,” student leaders Adam Lanas and Alexis Orosco said.

This push to end the mental health stigma doesn’t stop at the schools.

Rangel extends the awareness to the community by having Jeter and Scout participate in fairs and parades and being active on Instagram and TikTok with Jeter featured in his own Mercedes-Benz or Scout playing the drums. After years of outreach, the mayor, the police chief and officers, the Fire Department and the community of Selma all know Jeter.

Jeter’s stuffed plushies are distributed across the district to students who are having a bad day to hold or hug during class and for police officers to use in comforting students they encounter on calls across the community.

It’s become commonplace for parents to say, “I need to come see Jeter,” a signal that their kids need help.

“More and more, each year, we’re breaking down the stigma of mental health,” said Lizzette Rodriguez, a mental health clinician who started in 2017. “And I think it’s, in part, because of the dogs. They’ve made such a difference. As a mental health team, we’re advocating and making ourselves visible, and that’s making a huge impact as well.”

Also, “It’s a great way to start a conversation,” Lanas said.

When people ask why a dog is on campus, those questions start a conversation about Jeter’s and Scout’s roles as therapy dogs and why they’re important. Those conversations raise awareness about the resources Selma Unified offers, he added.

Why the services are crucial for Selma

As a rural community more than 15 miles southeast of the city of Fresno, Selma doesn’t offer many services in town outside what’s offered at the school, Rangel said.

“For a lot of our families, it’s difficult to drive to Fresno for services and support,” she said.

Lasherica Thornton/EdSource

Cockapoos Jeter and Scout are Selma Unified’s therapy dogs. The dogs work with lead mental health clinician Kristy Rangel in providing social-emotional learning lessons, attendance incentives, crisis response and individual therapy sessions. They’re pictured at Selma High School on May 19 at a mental health awareness event.

For the services that are in the community, it takes three to six months to connect students, Rangel said.

But with its mental health team, which has grown to eight mental health clinicians and eight social workers, Selma Unified can provide services to students within a week or two.

Each school has a mental health team member on campus at least twice a week.

“Having the mental health clinicians here on campus, we have access to the students,” she said.

Because the dogs “open the door for mental health clinicians,” as the superintendent described it, the number of students receiving mental health support has grown.

Referrals for student support reached nearly 200 between August 2016 and June 2019 — up from 32 and 88 in the first two school years. Although the numbers dropped to the low hundreds during the pandemic and hybrid learning, the numbers not only rebounded but reached unprecedented numbers in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years with 362 and 935 referrals, respectively.

Ronnie, the 17-year-old who is comforted by the dogs during her therapy sessions, first sought mental health services this year because she bottles up her feelings and is often anxious.

“I knew I was anxious and that it wouldn’t get better if I had said, ‘I don’t need that,’” she said.

She doesn’t think she would have made as much progress as she has without Rangel and the therapy dogs.

By her own description, her grades were terrible, to the point that she had to attend summer school last year.

“I was very unhappy. Kristy (Rangel) helped me grow and be a happier person for myself and not for anyone else,” Ronnie said with a huge grin on her face. “And Jeter and Scout – I walk in here, and if I’m having a bad day, who’s not going to smile when they see a cute dog run up to them?”

In a year’s time, she’s improved her grade point average from around 2.0 to 4.0.

“Personally I’ve grown a lot,” she said. “That’s just based on my mental health. I see my grades go down when I’m feeling down. Kristy really helps me think about myself. It’s important to be mindful of how you’re feeling. I’m really happy. I think I’ve found family here.”

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