Teen will assert mental health defense

Khemmathat Fariss allegedly attacked, bound an elderly East Brandywine woman in her home

WEST CHESTER » The Delaware County teenager who attacked an elderly East Brandywine woman in her home and left her bound and gagged for days will present a mental health defense at trial later this year, his attorney said Wednesday.

Khemmathat Fariss, who was 17 at the time of the attack at an isolated home along Creek Road, will seek a verdict of guilty but mentally ill when the case goes to trial in December, said attorney Robert Craig Keller of the law firm of Keller, Lisgar & Williams in Havertown. A notice of that in-

tention, along with a psychiatric evaluation of the defendant, was filed earlier this month.

“It is our position that Mr. Fariss is very young, and suffers from a longstanding mental health problem that affected his ability to appreciate the nature and quality” of what he is alleged to have done, Keller said in a telephone interview. “He never had the intent to commit homicide. He could not formulate the intent to do that.”

Keller declined to discuss the diagnosis of his client that was reached by Dr. Robert Altman of Reading, who prepared the evaluation that was provided to the prosecution when Keller filed his notice on Aug. 17. Such evaluations are considered confidential, even though Altman will likely be called to testify at Fariss’ trial, now scheduled before Common Pleas President Judge Jacqueline Carroll Cody on Dec. 3.

Assistant District Attorney Christine Abatemarco, who is handling the prosecution, declined to comment on the matter Wednesday except to confirm that her office intended to have its own evaluation of Fariss completed before trial.

Fariss, now 18, of Media was a student at the Devereux Foundation campus in Wallace in February 2017, having been placed there by Juvenile Court in Delaware County after he was charged for committing two residential burglaries. He walked away from the facility on Feb. 22, intending to flee the bullying he said was occurring at the facility and to live “life on the road,” according to previous testimony.

He stopped at a house along Creek Road that was isolated from the road and whose garage door was open. He broke in, took items he would use to make his getaway, and waited for hours for the woman he’d seen leaving that morning to return so he could steal her car.

Farris attacked her from behind, strangled her, and told her, “You’ll be with Jesus soon,” according to her testimony.

After locking the woman in a closet with her hands and feet bound and her mouth gagged, Fariss drove to Maryland, where he stayed for two days. He returned to Devereaux, but hid the car and did not tell anyone about the woman, who he assumed was seriously injured.

The woman remained in the closet in her home for four days, unable to move. She was eventually discovered on Feb. 26 when a relative came to the house because she had been unable to contact the woman. The victim was in critical medical condition, but had been aided by the fact that the weather that month was particularly warm, which kept her from suffering from hypothermia in the unheated closet. She has since largely recovered.

When police discovered Fariss’ involvement in the crime, they noted that he had taken steps to hide his connection to the attack, including using bleach on his shoes to hide the blood on them and stripping the woman’s Fiat coupe of identifying features, then hiding it in the woods behind the facility.

The attack and its connection with Devereux, a facility for troubled youth, caused a panic in the Downingtown and Glenmoore areas, and led to new procedures for community notification when there are walkaways there.

A guilty but mentally ill defense is different than the classic insanity defense, in which a defendant will seek a judgment of not guilty by reason of insanity. Under the guilty but mentally ill defense, a person will attempt to show that they were acting under a diminished capacity and therefore less culpable than a non-mentally ill criminal defendant. The verdict can be raised at sentencing as a reason for a judge to find mitigating circumstances and lessen he defendant’s punishment.

Keller said that his client, who remains in Chester County Prison without bail, was concerned about his fate.

“He is a young kid and he is scared,” the attorney said. “He is quite remorseful and feels for the victim. He is starting to understand what occurred here.”

He is charged with attempted homicide, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, strangulation, and related offenses. If convicted, he would face the possibility of being incarcerated at a state prison. Earlier this month, Cody dismissed Keller’s motion to have the charges of attempted homicide thrown out of the case, ruling they had properly been adjudicated when Judge John Hall heard the case against him in a preliminary proceeding. Hall ruled that even though Fariss was a juvenile when the crimes occurred, he should be tried as an adult.

TX Tagline:To contact Staff Writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.

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