ACCUSED KILLER TO BE FORCIBLY MEDICATED

Gregory Devon Murphy, accused of killing 8-year-old Kevin Shifflett last
April,will be forced to take medication to restore him to competency,
Alexandria Circuit Court Judge Alfred D. Swersky ruled at a hearing yesterday.

"The commonwealth has provided enough evidence to deem it medically
appropriate," Swersky said. "I will allow treatment of the defendant by any
and all means to restore him to competency."

Murphy, who was in attendance, yelled, "I want an appeal! I want an appeal!
You lied to the NAACP, judge," as he was being led out of the courtroom.

Murphy will undergo any further treatment at Central State Hospital, in
Petersburg. Swersky has asked the hospital to report on Murphy's status
after 30 days and then at 60-dayintervals.

Swersky's ruling ended a daylong hearing of witnesses and testimony.
Commonwealth's Attorney S. Randolph Sengel argued that involuntary
medication was the best way to restore Murphy to comptency and keep him
from being a danger to himself and others.

Sengel, relying heavily on a forensic evaluation of Murphy by Dafferlin
Barnard-Dupree of the Liberty Forensic Unit, argued that Murphy's condition
of paranoid schizophrenia would only worsen if he were not given
antipsychotic drugs, since group therapy, education and other means used to
treat Murphy since December hadn't worked.

"We had to consider if [Murphy] could have been treated using less
intrusive means," Sengel said. "I think the court has heard evidence that
this is not the case."

Sengel pointed to two violent outbursts by Murphy in January at Liberty,
and Dupree testified about the delusional thought processes and paranoid
behavior that didn't heal in the past four months.

"We had to show that involuntary medication is the least intrusive means,"
Sengel said. "I think from what the court has heard today that it is."

Sengel also used Dupree and Dr. Jonathan Zenilman, associate professor of
medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, as witnesses to argue
that paranoid schizophrenia, not Murphy's syphilis, is causing his dementia
and violent behavior.

According to testimony, Murphy was diagnosed with latent syphilis in 1993
and was given penicillin to clear up the disease within his blood.
Zenilman, who has specialized in infectious diseases for the last 15 years,
stated that because of advances in medication, only 10 to 15 percent of
untreated latent syphilis patients advance to neurosyphilis, where the
disease attacks the cerebral spinal fluid, causing the symptoms like
delusional behavior and paranoia that are shared by schizophrenia and syphilis.

"And that's if they are untreated," Zenilman said. "If it's a treated
patient, then the chances are about 10 percent from that 10 to 15 percent."

Dupree testified that in the four months she has treated Murphy, she found
no evidence of syphilis remaining and, in her opinion, he isn't suffering
from neurosyphilis.

"The nature of the disease is that it is degenerative," Dupree said. "I
have not seen any course of degeneration."

Murphy's defense attorneys, Joseph Bowman and Joseph McCarthy, used their
own witnesses to argue that, because it is unclear when Murphy contracted
syphilis, it is impossible to rule out that he may have an advanced stage
of the disease without giving him a spinal tap to check his cerebral fluid.

Psychiatrist Dr. Neil Blumberg argued for the defense that neurosyphilis
can masquerade as many other disorders. Blumberg did a psychiatric exam on
Murphy and testified that Murphy suffered from such symptoms as
disorganized thinking, motor tremors in his hand, a drooping of the left
side of his face, confusion and impaired recent memory. He added that
several of those symptoms would not fall under the category of
schizophrenic symptoms.

"Paranoid schizophrenia would not account for the symptoms such as memory
and visual impairment or the tremors," Blumberg said. "Checking the
cerebral spinal fluid is the only way to rule out neurosyphilis."

Furlong, an infectious disease specialist at Arlington Hospital, added that
a spinal tap could show if there is organic disease that could be treated
with heavy antibiotics instead of forcing the patient to use antipsychotic
drugs.

Bowman said in closing that forcing medication on Murphy violated his
Sixth, 8th and 14th Constitutional amendment rights and that a statute
would have to be amended before involuntary medication could be allowed.

Sengel responded that sometimes the court has to step in and regulate
certain cases if the defendant refuses to cooperate.

"The fact is that the defendant is incompetent because he suffers from a
mental illness," Sengel said. "It's only common sense to treat a mental
illness. But he's refused a MRI. He's refused a spinal tap. Nowhere does it
say that a defendant has the right to avoid a trial in a case as compelling
as this."