Tuesday, October 31, 2017
WARREN
When the penalty phase of the Nasser Hamad aggravated-murder trial begins at 9 a.m. Monday, one of the witnesses expected to testify is Dr. James Reardon, a clinical psychologist from Worthington.
Defense attorneys had hoped for Reardon to testify in the first part of the trial, to discuss his diagnosis that Hamad suffered from post-
traumatic stress disorder at the time of the Feb. 25 shootings in front of his house on state Route 46 in Howland.
A jury found Hamad guilty Monday of two counts of aggravated murder and six counts of attempted aggravated murder.
Judge Ronald Rice of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court did not allow Reardon’s testimony during the first part of the trial, saying Ohio law does not allow it in such cases.
Joshua Williams, 20, and Joshua Haber, 19, died in the shootings. April Trent-Vokes, 42, Bryce Hendrickson, 20, and John Shively, 17, were injured by the gunfire.
Reardon testified in a 2013 murder trial in Chillicothe on behalf of a man convicted of killing his daughter-in-law.
In that case, Reardon said the defendant grew up in an abusive household in which he felt powerless to protect himself, his siblings and his mother from savage beatings by his father. The jury gave the defendant a life prison sentence instead of the death penalty.
Read more about the next phase of the case in Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.