Mental Illness Behind Grandfather’s Murder
Posted on Jan 13, 2011 10:20am PST
Truck stop preacher James E. Kirby III, 53, was been shot to death with a 9 mm pistol by his grandson, mentally ill Benjamin Charles Hartman, 25, on November 16, 2010, as reported in the Roanoke Times.
Hartman's grandmother was once married to Kirby.
Kirby, suffering with an incurable lung condition, was found by his current wife and stepdaughter, still wearing his oxygen mask. Blood trailed from his body and out of the back door of his home in the 5500 block of Franklin Road.
Detective Adam Thompson said that the gun's casing was located on one of the home's plastic patio chairs.
Vincent Lilley, the Roanoke County General District Court judge, certified the first-degree murder charge to the grand jury during a preliminary hearing. The grand jury will be meeting next month and must determine whether Hartman will be standing trial.
Bill Cleaveland, Hartman's defense attorney, has announced that he will be mounting an insanity defense for his client. Hartman has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder - an illness described by the Mayo Clinic website to cause both a loss of contact with reality and mood problems.
Cleaveland contends that while police have approximately two hours of recorded interrogation with Hartman, a person plagued with this disorder is incapable of intelligently giving up his right to remain silent.
Cleaveland told Detective Thompson, "You told him on tape that he wasn't making any sense." Judge Lilley told Cleaveland that the circuit court would be managing the issue of Hartman's mental illness later.
A week prior to the murder, and when detectives allege that Hartman began planning the event, Hartman visited Kirby for five minutes at his Franklin Road home. Atlanta Kirby, James Kirby's wife, noted that Hartman appeared delusional and didn't make any sense. Of her husband's response to his grandson's visit she said, "The hairs on the back of his next stood up."
Thompson also spoke with Hartman's parents a few hours after the shooting. It was then that the detective learned not only of Hartman's mental illness, but that he also owned the 9 mm weapon.
Hartman's father allowed detectives to enter his home. They found Hartman in his bedroom, sleeping nude, still with the gun.
After Hartman confessed to the police that he had planned the shooting a week before he described his actions on the day of the murder: He drove to his grandfather's home, knocked on the back door, removed his semiautomatic pistol from the waistband of his pants and shot Kirby in the face.
There is no testimony describing any conversation between the two, nor a motive given in the shooting.
Johnnie Tickle, a friend of Kirby's, told police in a subsequent interview that Kirby's lung condition had worsened in the months before he died. He was down to just one half a lung - one lung and part of the other had been removed - and relied heavily on the oxygen tank to breathe.
In his younger days, per Tickle, the two enjoyed motorcycling. On Friday nights they went to Bible study together. It was at this time that Kirby became known for preaching and handling out bibles at truck stops in Troutville.
Tickle said, "He'd been a bad-boy biker, but he cleaned himself up and went to the Lord."
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