The defense attorney of a Hendersonville teen accused of killing his mother and attempting to kill his brother has argued that anyone who would have met his client would have spotted red flags that indicated Zachary Davis was going through a difficult time prior to the August murder.
“In fact, I have no doubt about that,” said Randy Lucas during an interview after Sumner County Juvenile Court Judge Barry Brown ruled in September that Davis should be tried as an adult.
Two prominent child psychologists were asked by Sumner A.M. to examine the Facebook profile page of 15-year-old Davis, which despite being under the alias of “Alex Freeman” was confirmed by police to have belonged to Davis.
Dr. Susan Bartell, who is a child psychologist and the author of the Top 50 Questions Kids Ask books, said Davis’ Facebook page and his profile picture, which is a Japanese Anime image graphically depicting a man severing a girl’s head, would have concerned her.
“I’d be pretty worried,” she said. “If a parent came to me with this Facebook, I would evaluate the kid for suicidal and homicidal ideation (thoughts).”
Davis’ profile page also has several violent images posted throughout.
Dr. Ed Christophersen, a staff child psychologist at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., said Davis’ Facebook would have certainly prompted clinical intervention.
“I would think that he was in serious need of psychiatric help,” he said.
Dr. Christophersen described Davis’ choice of imagery as “pathological” and would have told his parents to “make an appointment with a mental health professional immediately.”
Davis is currently at the Rutherford County Juvenile Detention facility in Murfreesboro and is expected to stay there throughout the remainder of court proceedings. According to District Attorney Ray Whitley, Brown wants Davis to be treated legally as an adult but custodially as a child.
Davis is reported to have admitted to killing his mother, Melanie Davis, with a sledgehammer while she was sleeping around midnight Aug. 10 and then setting the house on fire with gasoline and whiskey as accelerants while his older brother slept in his room. His brother was awoken by the smoke alarm and, unharmed, fled the house. Davis was found about six hours later, miles away from home in Gallatin with a letter in which he confessed to killing his mother and “leaving his brother to burn in the fire that he started,” according to an affidavit.
Whitley is expecting Davis will be indicted by a Sumner County grand jury on the three charges he is currently facing, first-degree murder, criminal attempt to commit first-degree murder and aggravated arson,with an announcement of the indictment possible this week.
Lucas has called his client a “victim,” indicating that Davis was raped when he was younger and that having to watch his father die of Lou Gehrig's Disease five years earlier was very traumatic for him. Lucas said that Davis’ pleas for help were ignored by his mother and the Sumner County school system. Even if he had not said anything, anyone who would have met Davis would have known something was wrong, Lucas argued.
“His entire demeanor, his way of speaking, his total isolation from people; he had no friends, he had no extracurricular activities – all of those things I would think were markers of someone who is at least, particularly a child, who is at least having some difficulty that might benefit from intervention,” Lucas said.
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