• Daughter charged in dad's killing to receive mental evaluation,
Daughter charged in dad’s killing slams her head into wall
Just hours after she was arrested and accused of fatally stabbing her father, Christina Nicassio repeatedly rushed headfirst at a cell wall in the Allegheny County Jail.
Ms. Nicassio, 27, told an officer “she should have done it” before she was booked. She was taken by ambulance to Allegheny General Hospital in stable condition on Saturday, shortly after the 2:45 p.m. incident, according to jail reports obtained by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Her attorney, Patrick Thomassey, said Ms. Nicassio received four stitches in her head and returned to the Allegheny County Jail on Sunday. She is being observed and evaluated by the jail’s mental health team.
“She has some serious mental health issues, I think,” Mr. Thomassey said. “It’s just really sad.”
Ms. Nicassio was taken into custody just hours before the jail incident, after investigators said she fatally stabbed her father, Anthony Nicassio, 69, an internist and primary care physician at Greater Pittsburgh Medical Associates-UPMC.
According to Allegheny County police, her mother, Sandra Nicassio, told officers that her daughter had recently been through a “bad breakup” and that she and Dr. Nicassio tried to persuade their daughter to let them take her to a hospital. When they tried to get her into a vehicle, officers said, Ms. Nicassio grabbed a knife and stabbed her father when he tried to take it from her.
“I don’t know why, I thought he had to die,” Ms. Nicassio told officers, according to an affidavit. She then referred to a movie, “The Mummy Returns,” in which, she said, “someone who can’t love someone else, they stab their father.”
Ms. Nicassio, a head coach and personal trainer at the Allegheny Force Football Club, was arrested without incident and charged with homicide and possessing instruments of crime. She was awaiting arraignment at the jail when she rushed headfirst at a cell wall multiple times, jail reports show. Jail staff said her demeanor before the incident was “quiet and subdued.” As they waited for paramedics to arrive, investigators said Ms. Nicassio told them she “didn’t want to think anymore.”
Allegheny County spokeswoman Amie Downs would not comment on Ms. Nicassio’s mental state when she was booked into the jail.
Allegheny County Jail Warden Orlando Harper said in a statement that a number of issues are taken into consideration before jail personnel determine placement and treatment for incoming inmates.
“From the moment a person comes in the door, we do a variety of screenings and other evaluations to ensure that we know as much as we can about a person to ensure their safety,” he said. “This includes an initial medical screening when they come in the door, a fuller medical evaluation, including determinations about mental health, a classification and history process, as well as information and observances gathered and made by our employees, as well as other inmates, when provided.”