By Reason of Insanity

by Rachel Sinclair

  She might not have loved him, but she did love his money. Ms. Vasiliev was extremely greedy, and was never happy with just the millions of dollars that he gave her over the years. She wanted it all. Everything. She wanted everything, all of his money, and she did not want to do anything for it. She wanted all his money, but she also wanted to be with someone who she truly loved.”

  I knew that Jenna was never going to be able to state that my client had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. Her diagnosis was something that I had managed to keep out through a motion in limine that I made to the court before the trial ever started. However, I also knew that the prosecutor was going to show my client’s instability through other ways.

  Jenna couldn’t bring it in, but I was going to do so. That was my strategy - I wanted to control how Marina’s illness was addressed.

  Unfortunately, there were a lot of ways that she could show Marina’s instability, other than openly talking about her mental illness. Jenna was actually correct. There were quite a few people who were privy to the dysfunction of Marina and Lawrence’s relationship. Lawrence was a mild-mannered guy, and Marina was the one who was volatile. And, yes, she had threatened to kill him in front of various people.

  Nevertheless, I knew that there were going to be quite a few people who were going to talk about the violence that Marina had visited upon Lawrence, the verbal threats that she made to him, how she was constantly belittling him, and how she was always telling him that she didn't want to be with him, that he made her sick, and that she wanted to kill him. Yes, she said all those things. She admitted that to me.

  Yet, I still felt that I could overcome all of that, because I had my ace in the hole.

  At least, I hoped that I would be able to overcome all that. Because, granted, it was a lot to overcome.

  Jenna's opening statement went on for another five minutes. She went over all the evidence that she was going to show to them, and, I had to admit, she did not do a bad job.

  My opening the statement was next, and I laid out what I was going to show them.

  I knew that the prosecutor thought that she had the smoking guns. Namely, all the vile things that my client had said to her husband, and all the vile threats she had made, and all the violence that she had visited upon him.

  I just thought that my smoking gun was even better than hers.

  Chapter 34

  After both of us gave our opening statements, it was time to begin the trial. The first few people who Jenna was going to call were just basic people who were going to state what had happened. The cops who were on the scene. The cops who interrogated her. And then the Medical Examiner. Jenna was going to get those witnesses out of the way, and then she was going to call the juicier ones.

  The fact of Marina’s dissociation was part of Jenna’s strategy. She wanted that evidence in court, because she wanted to make sure that Marina couldn’t get up on the stand and state definitively that she didn’t kill Lawrence. She didn't want me to put Marina on the stand to testify that she remembered the night of the murder, and that she had nothing to do with it. So, Jenna thought that the best strategy to counteract that possible testimony would be to show that Marina had no memory of what had happened.

  The cops gave their testimony about how they had come to the scene, and found Lawrence lying in the foyer of their enormous La Jolla home, with Marina sitting in a chair in that same home, staring off into the space. They talked about how when they asked Marina about what had happened, she did not answer them.

  “What happened when you took her into custody?” Jenna asked the first cop, who was named Officer Ryan.

  “I interrogated her,” he said.

  “And how did that go?” Jenna asked.

  “Not good,” Officer Ryan said. “She didn’t answer our questions properly at all.”

  “What do you mean that she wasn’t answering your questions properly?”

  “I mean, she gave nonsense answers. For instance, I asked her about what she was doing in her house at the moment her husband died, and she started talking about what happened when she was seven years old. She talked about going to the zoo with her adoptive mother, and I asked her if she killed him and she started talking about sea lions. It was weird.”

  And he went on to tell the jury about the rest of the interrogation.

  I knew that this testimony was not exactly good testimony for Jenna, but I also knew that she was going to be calling an expert who was going to testify about dissociative states, and how individuals can commit murder while they're in that state. That was important to show, for her. Because, if my client really was dissociating at the time that the cops had come to the scene, how could she have killed him?

  That expert was next.

  The prosecutor’s expert witness was named Dr. Little. She was a slight blonde woman, about 45 years old, who wore glasses, put on no makeup, and had a kind of a mousy look to her. She walked slightly stooped, and she was a tiny person, living up her name. She probably only weighed about 90 pounds.

  She gave her name on the stand, and her credentials, stating to the jury that she had been a psychotherapist for the past twenty years and that she had earned her PhD from Harvard in clinical psychology. She stated that she had treated a multitude of patients over the years who had dissociative states, including people who had suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder, explaining to the jury that DID had been commonly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, and patients who dissociated because they were suffering from another mental illness, such as Borderline Personality Disorder.

  “Can you explain to the jury what a dissociative state is?” Jenna asked her.

  “It’s basically where an individual has, what sometimes has been termed, an out-of-body experience. Some patients have described it as seeing themselves from up above, or from another room, and not feeling that they’re a part of their own body."

  "So, some patients describe it as not being part of the own body?"

  “Yes. It's a detachment from reality. It can be distinguished from a loss of reality which is the case in psychosis. Dissociation is the way that a patient copes when he or she is experiencing a period of extreme stress. It could be mild, such as daydreaming and getting yourself lost in your daydreams. Most people have experienced that kind of mild dissociation, where they have a daydream which seems very real, but it's not. But it can also manifest itself as an altered state of consciousness."

  "And what do you mean by altered state of consciousness?" Jenna asked Dr. Little.

  "Well it could mean different things. It could mean that the person thinks that the world is unreal, and she's not a part of the world and she's not a part of herself. It could mean a loss of memory, amnesia. Sometimes a person forgets who they are, and assumes a new identity, a new sense of self. It can also manifest with Dissociative Identity Disorder, commonly known as multiple personality disorder, where there's different personalities within the same body. It could manifest itself as post-traumatic stress disorder, where an individual is brought back to a time of extreme stress, and relives that moment over and over, in minute detail.”

  "What brings on dissociative states?" Jenna asked.

  "Stress is commonly what triggers dissociative states. Also trauma. Sometimes it’s brought on by the person taking psychoactive drugs. But sometimes, it just doesn't really have a trigger."

  "And what causes dissociation, at its root?”

  “Usually trauma. Dissociation helps a child, or an adult, who's in an abusive situation, survive his or her situation. For instance, if a person is being abused, a person may dissociate because he or she needs to escape that reality. Literally. It's a defense mechanism, so even after the traumatic situations have ended, the brain still remembers the trauma, so the dissociation can happen for years afterwards."

  "And, to your knowledge, is it possible to kill another person while you're in a dissociative state?"

  "Yes. It definitely is."

&nb
sp; And then she went and explained about a number of public cases that she had studied throughout the years, people who had killed individuals while they were in such a state. She gave several examples where people had multiple personalities, and one of the personalities killed somebody, and this was not considered to be an excuse for the murder. But she also talked about how individuals who did not have DID were shown to have killed somebody while they were in a dissociative state. They would not remember the murder afterwards, and, as a matter of fact, they were in this dissociative state when they killed the individual.

  Her testimony lasted several hours, and then, finally, Jenna announced that she was through with her direct examination of Dr. Little. “I have nothing further for this witness,” Jenna said, and then sat down.

  I went ahead and approached Dr. Little. "Dr. Little, is it fair to say that you have not actually treated my client?"

  "Yes, that that is fair to say. I have not treated your client."

  "In fact, you're just here to be a general expert witness, to state that it’s possible to kill in a dissociative state, isn't that right?"

  "Yes, that is correct."

  "Now, so you don't know for sure that my client actually killed her husband while she was dissociating, correct?"

  "Right. That's correct. I have no idea if she did that."

  "Now, you talked on direct about all of these cases of people that you have heard about. People that you have read about in studies. Isn't that right?"

  "Yes, that's correct. Those were all case studies. I obviously would not be able to testify about people I actually treated. That would be a clear breach of doctor-patient confidentiality."

  I knew what she was getting at. She was implying that, even though she did not actually state on the stand that she treated people who killed somebody while they were dissociating, she actually did treat some patients like that, but she could not state that on the stand. I was going to pin her down on that, because I knew for a fact that she did not have any patients who killed someone while in a dissociative state. This was something that I discovered when I interviewed her myself.

  "In fact, you have never actually treated a patient who killed another individual while they were dissociating, isn't that true?"

  "Yes, that's true."

  "So, are you telling the jury that your only knowledge of people killing other people while dissociating are through the case studies that you have read and in medical journals which are available to the public. Isn't that right?"

  "Yes, that's correct. But I have treated many patients who have had dissociative states throughout their lives."

  "I understand that. You stated that when you first took the stand. You stated that you were a bit of an expert on dissociative states. I just wanted to pinpoint that you had not actually had a patient who killed in such a state. And that's your testimony, isn't that right?"

  "Yes, as I said, that is correct."

  "I have nothing further for this witness."

  Dr. Little was excused, and she left the stand.

  I felt pretty good about my exchange with her. After all, she was supposed to be this big expert, but she wasn’t that much of an expert, because she had never treated anybody who was in the same situation that my client was in when her husband died.

  I realized that her dissociative state kind of boxed the prosecutor in, and I was happy about that. She had to address it, and she had to explain it away. The jury still could not be sure that killing somebody while dissociating was actually a thing.

  The next few witnesses were going to be more problematic. They were the ones who would actually saw Marina and Lawrence interact.

  The first witness that the prosecutor called was named Ella O'Neill. Ella was one of Lawrence’s oldest family friends. She had known him since she was born. She was obviously not one of their sex site friends, so she did not feel embarrassed to come and take the stand. I knew that the other ones were going to feel a sense of shame, but they were subpoenaed, so they couldn’t really get out of it.

  But Ella was a family friend. She was the daughter of Lawrence’s best friend, whose name was Pete O'Neill. She had been to one dinner party where she was privy to all of what Marina could dish out to poor Lawrence.

  She was dying to testify.

  That I knew.

  Chapter 35

  Ella approached the witness stand, raised her right hand, was sworn in, and sat down. She glared at Marina. I could see hatred burning in her eyes. I looked over at Marina, and she was glaring right back. Marina was not going to be intimidated by her, or anybody else.

  Ella burned a hole in Marina, a hole that I could tell was deep with hatred. Her eyes were turned on Marina, and they were accusing, scary. I could almost read what she was thinking in her head. She was thinking to herself, you killed him, you know you did. He was a good man, and now he doesn’t exist anymore just because of you.

  Perhaps she was right. I didn’t really know. I had a good idea, however, that she was not correct that my client killed her husband.

  She was sworn in, she stated her name, and then Jenna got right to work. “Now, Ms. O’Neill, you understand why you are testifying in court today, isn’t that right?“

  Ella got closer to the microphone. “Yes. I understand.“

  “Take me back to the evening of April 17, 2018. Can you describe to me what you were doing that evening.“

  “Yes. I was a participant in a dinner party with myself, Lawrence, and his wife, Marina Vasiliev.” She took a deep breath through her nose and blew it out her mouth. She closed her eyes, and I could tell that she was trying to find her happy place. I recognized that immediately, because that was the kind of thing that I did when I was nervous. Or scared. Or enraged. And I could tell that this woman was suffering from the last emotion. Rage.

  “And can you describe for the court what was the mood of that particular dinner party?” Jenna was now pacing around, looking at me and then looking over at the jury. She smiled at me a little bit, and I could tell that she thought that she had me on the ropes. And my client on the ropes as well. I just looked back at her, my eyes hopefully conveying that I was not going to be intimidated by her or anybody else. I stared at Jenna right back as she gave me a little smirk, and then turned back to Ella, who was still on the stand, still burning holes into Marina.

  “It was tense, to say the very least.“ And then she looked over at Marina. “You ever seen the movie, or the play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? You know, where there’s a married couple, and they were just horrible to each other all through the night, right in front of two other people who had no idea what they were getting into? Hitting below the belt, right in front of their guests. Well that’s what that night was like, only, in this case, it was only one of the parties hitting below the belt of the other. Marina kept hitting Lawrence, and he just took it.“

  “What do you mean, Marina kept hitting Lawrence, and he just took it?”

  “What I mean is that Marina was constantly saying horrible things to him all night long. Right in front of me. She was saying things about how he was in bed, telling him that he was a terrible lover. She was also saying things to him about how he could never satisfy her, either in bed or out. She was complaining about the fact that she was married to him and he had all his money, and why was it that she was only getting $1 million a year from him, because she knew that he was worth billions. She told him that she thought that he was running his company into the ground, and sooner or later, she was not going to have anything to get from him. She was saying things like she wanted to make sure that she got as much money as possible from him while she could, because she thought that by the time he was going to be 70 years old, he was going to be worth nothing. Mind you, he was about 60 years old when I was there at the dinner party, so she was saying that he was going be broke in another 10 years. And she did not want to chance that she was going to get to the end of the marriage with him, and have both of them be broke and in the poo
rhouse.“

  At that, Marina was on her feet. “Of course I thought that he was going to lose all his money. He was a terrible businessman, terrible CEO. I don’t even know how he managed to get a business. And I grew up in an orphanage and –“

  Judge Watt pounded her gavel and pointed right at Marina. “Ms. Vasiliev, you need to sit down and be quiet. One more outburst like that, and I will put you in contempt of court.“

  I stood up, and I put my hand firmly on Marina’s shoulder. I could tell that she was shaking with rage, and I could also tell that she wanted to go right over to Ella and strangle her. This was not a good look. This was not a good look at all. The members of the jury were all looking at Marina and shaking their heads. I could tell that they were not liking my client at this moment.

  I could tell that Ella’s testimony was affecting the jury, and I hoped I would be able to overcome it. I didn’t know if I could, however. I knew that this was coming, and I knew that she was going to be one of many who was going to testify as to how horrible Marina was to her husband. I knew that Marina could not really help the way she was. When you have Borderline Personality Disorder, you really can’t control your outbursts. Not that this was an excuse for the way she behaved - nothing could excuse that. She was not just cruel to Lawrence, but to everybody else around her, except maybe Amber, and, with her, I knew that it was only a matter of time. At the same time, I also knew that, through my research on BPD, her behavior was pretty typical.