Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Day 7 of the trial
The second week of the trial brought more nostalgia for Jeremy. Seeing Clark had sparked a flood of memories and Halloween morning brought another blast to the past, when he saw the man who had indirectly sparked this whole thing.
Dr. Siva sat in the box, broad-shouldered and confident. The last eighteen months had aged him, and white had started to replace the gray. Jeremy’s old mentor kept his eyes on him much like Clark had, but this time Jeremy wanted to meet his stare.
“Dr. Siva, how do you know the defendant?” Geoff asked.
“I’m a professor at Denver State University. Mr. Heston was one of my students.”
“I understand that you had a closer relationship with the defendant than with most of your students.”
“Correct. Mr. Heston and I met every month at my office, to catch up on life—and his coursework, when school was in session.”
“So you met with him even when school wasn’t in session?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“When I first met Jeremy outside of class, he had come by with a question on an assigned paper. Talking with him showed me he had a bright future as a psychologist. It was a hunch, but you can always tell the special students apart.”
“What sparked the monthly meetings?”
“After our first meeting, I asked him to drop back in after he had completed the assignment. I wanted to know what he had come up with.”
“What was the assignment?”
“It was a high-level assignment where the students could write about any topic as long as it related to mental health. Mr. Heston chose to write about the effects of schizophrenia.”
“Did you know he had a family member that suffered from the disease?”
“Not at the time, but I did learn that later on.”
“How many students have you had monthly meetings with throughout your career as a professor?”
Dr. Siva bobbed his head side to side as he mentally counted them. “There have been eight others that I can recall.”
“So it’s not a common occurrence?”
“Not at all. I like to connect with my highly talented students and guide them throughout this field. It’s competitive and complex to get started in a career as a psychologist or psychiatrist.”
“How did these conversations go with the defendant?”
“When he started his initial job after obtaining his bachelor’s degree, I warned him of the corporate world potentially being a roadblock in his path as a psychologist. He loved the company so much though, it didn’t resonate with him until later.”
“Did he ever discuss his director, Shelly Williams, with you?”
“Yes, he did. In the months leading up to this attack, her name started to come up, but it wasn’t anything that would suggest such a violent outburst.”
“What did he say about her?”
“All he ever mentioned was how she held him back, turned him down at every opportunity that arose. Things happened exactly as I feared they would; she crushed his high hopes.”
“You said you try to guide your special students to careers in psychology. How did you do this with the defendant?”
“I saw my younger self in him. I encouraged him to think big, think of ways to change the world. Maybe he could have found the cure to something. Now we’ll never know.”
Jeremy’s gut twisted into hard knots. He had always wanted to tell Dr. Siva that this was all a big experiment to shed light on mental health, but he knew that the less his professor knew the better off they both would be.
“Dr. Siva, I know you never had formal interviews with the defendant, like the other doctors in this trial, but in your professional opinion did the defendant ever show signs of mental illness?”
Dr. Siva paused and scratched his head with dry, cracked fingers.
“Schizophrenia is very much hereditary. I never personally saw signs, but then again, I only had an hour each month to really talk with Jeremy.”
“No further questions.”
Fuck, Jeremy thought. That last statement could come back to haunt him. If the person closest to Jeremy—in the psychology field—wouldn’t testify to his insanity, how could he expect the verdict to be any different?
Wilbert rose immediately as Geoff turned away from the podium, wasting no time beginning his cross-examination.
“Dr. Siva, you spent a lot of time with Mr. Heston over the two years before the shooting. Would you say it’s possible you may have not noticed signs of a dormant mental illness?”
“It’s very possible, yes. Though as a psychologist, you constantly study people in your life to see what makes them tick.”
“Dr. Siva, you created a notion in Jeremy’s mind that the corporate world would fail him. You sat back and watched as he came in each month and told you how poorly he was being treated. Did you ever talk with him about other employment options?”
“Of course. I told him I had connections if he wanted to work in the field. I also encouraged him to consider opening a practice of his own.”
“And when Mr. Heston expressed no desire to do these things, it must have upset you, right?”
“It didn’t upset me. To each their own. Jeremy was a bright student and I wanted to present him with multiple options. I assumed he’d be fine with whatever route he took.”
“Have you ever studied the effects of environmental factors on mental health?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then you should know that events like what happened to Mr. Heston—the constant rejection, the letdown—could have caused him to have an outburst like this.”
“Yes, it’s very possible. It could have started with depression and escalated. Again, I didn’t have the chance to examine Jeremy. He could have easily hid his depression during the hour each month when we met.”
“No further questions.”
Holy shit! Jeremy thought. He wanted to stand and applaud his defense attorney. Wilbert had planted seeds of doubt. Even though Dr. Siva wasn’t on the stand as a psychiatrist, Wilbert had found a way to weave in his expertise and explore the possibility of a wavering mental state.
Wilbert returned to their table with a stern face as Dr. Siva walked slowly from the witness stand.