Sociopath... not Narcissist on Trial for Murder

The narcissist requires excessive admiration, harbors a sense of entitlement and holds a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love, a crime scene analyst told jurors today in the aggravated murder trial of Yazeed Essa.

And prosecutors implied in their questioning that the description fits the former Gates Mills doctor to a T.

Essa, 41, is accused of poisoning his wife, Rosemarie, in 2005, then fleeing the country, leading law enforcement officials on an 18-month-long international manhunt. Prosecutors believe he laced his wife's calcium supplements with cyanide to free himself of a loveless marriage.

Witnesses have testified that Essa put himself and his pursuit of pleasure above his concern for others. He cheated on his wife with numerous women, spreading herpes to at least nine of them, witnesses have said. And not once has he requested to see his two young children, whom he abandoned when he fled the country.

Essa has maintained that he did not kill his wife and left the country because he feared he would not receive a fair trial. As evidence of his innocence, his attorneys repeatedly have emphasized for jurors that their client did not get rid of the contaminated pill bottle after his wife's death and rather, willingly turned it over to investigators.

But prosecutors sought to undermine the defense team's logic today with the testimony of Gregg McCrary, a crime scene analyst and criminal profiler.

McCrary explained for jurors that the most cunning criminals, worried about becoming the prime suspect in an investigation, often will stage evidence to misdirect detectives.

The analyst also spoke generally about the rarity of poisoning homicides. Based on McCrary's research, Rosemarie Essa's death by potassium cyanide ingestion was the only such case in the world between 2003 and 2007, he said.

But McCrary was not permitted to testify directly on what would motivate someone like Essa to leave nine contaminated capsules in a bottle for investigators to find.

During a hearing on the issue, out of earshot from the jury, McCrary said he would testify that hypothetically, turning the tainted supplements over to police could create the illusion that the offender is innocent, and that product tampering could be to blame for the victim's death.

Essa's attorneys argued that allowing McCrary to suggest potential motives of a hypothetical murderer would unfairly prejudice the jury against their client.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Deena Calabrese initially said that the defense lawyers opened the door to the testimony when they cross-examined Highland Heights police detective Gary McKee earlier in the week with the same series of hypothetical questions.

On Wednesday, defense attorney Steven Bradley grilled McKee on the theories that led police to suspect Essa.

"If you're Yazeed Essa, a bright young medical doctor," Bradley asked, "And you wanted to get away with murdering your wife, wouldn't it make sense to dispose of the nine contaminated pills?"

McKee responded, "I don't know what was going on in his head."

Calabrese contended that posing the hypothetical scenarios for a witness with limited expertise left questions unanswered for the jury and justified McCrary's follow-up testimony.

But after reconsidering the issue todayy, Calabrese ruled that McCrary would have to limit his testimony to crime scene analysis and could not answer questions related to Essa's case.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/02/criminal_mind_explored_at_yaze.html