Witness Claims McLaughlin Faked Mental Disorder:
Dr. Katheryn Cranbrook testified today for the prosecution in the insanity trial of John Jason McLaughlin, and guess what she thinks. She thinks that McLaughlin is faking it. Who would have thought…
Katheryn Cranbrook said she originally diagnosed McLaughlin with an emerging psychotic disorder in 2003, but now believes he was faking his symptoms.
Cranbrook interviewed McLaughlin in November 2003, two months after the teenager took a gun to Rocori High School in Cold Spring and killed two students. She interviewed him again last month in anticipation of his murder trial.
Observations of McLaughlin in a juvenile detention facility, security hospital and later jail after his Sept. 24, 2003, arrest did not support his reports of hallucinations, Cranbrook testified.
“No one had noticed prior to that day any significant impairment in functioning,” she said in Stearns County District Court.
Cranbook said it was suspicious that McLaughlin’s reports of vision changed over time and between doctors. She said his reports of hearing voices in fifth and then sixth grade was also rare.
Schizophrenia is generally diagnosed in early adulthood and rarely before adolescence. McLaughlin also did not exhibit the lack of hygiene and disorganized speech that are common symptoms of schizophrenia, she said.
“He was organized. He was rational. He was very reality-based,” Cranbrook said.
You don’t say.
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