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Mental-health treatment ordered in stabbing of grandmother
By ED RUNYAN
WARREN
Crystal Goodrich, the 30-year-old Leavittsburg woman who police said stabbed her grandmother last June, has been found innocent by reason of insanity and will be referred for mental-health treatment.
Goodrich, who told police after the attack she dreamed about vampires and had been “waiting for 29 years” to kill her grandmother, stabbed Ruth V. Jenkins, 81, three times as a police officer rushed into Jenkins’ apartment to stop her.
Jenkins has since recovered.
Goodrich originally was charged with attempted murder, felonious assault and kidnapping and went on trial Thursday before Judge Peter Kontos of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court with no jury after being found competent to stand trial.
But Chris Becker, an assistant county prosecutor, and Roger Bauer, Good- rich’s attorney, agreed that a psychiatric evaluation done by Dr. Thomas Gazley of the Forensic Psychiatric Center in Austintown had found her to be insane at the time she committed the crimes.
The Forensic Psychiatric Center will conduct another evaluation of Goodrich in the coming days, and the results will be provided to Judge Kontos before a hearing at 11 a.m. May 24.
Those results will help determine what course of treatment Goodrich will receive, Becker said, adding that Goodrich will be evaluated again in six months and then at two-year intervals.
Becker said Goodrich will be under court supervision for the next 13 years. At that point, further mental-health supervision could be ordered through a noncriminal process, he noted.
Bauer said his client has asked him what will happen to her, and he is not able to tell her with any certainty. Future evaluations will determine whether she eventually is released under some type of monitoring bracelet or kept under medical supervision, he said.
With a police officer witnessing the assault, it would be difficult to prevent Goodrich from going to prison for eight or more years, so Thursday’s result is a good one, Bauer said.
Goodrich had a clean rec-ord before this incident, and demonstrated “obvious psychiatric issues” on the day of the crimes, so sending her to prison didn’t seem appropriate, Becker added.
A Newton Falls police report Becker released said Goodrich’s mother, Kathy Lane, told police Goodrich had talked in recent years about being on a “suicide mission” and told Lane that Jenkins is a vampire. Good-rich told Lane the day of the attack that she wanted Lane to watch her kill Jenkins.