
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 12, 1995                   TAG: 9504120048
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PSYCHIATRIC EXAM SOUGHT FOR SUSPECT IN ARSON, ASSAULT

Jermaine Anderson, who at age 7 was charged with setting a fatal fire and at 19 stands accused of trying to do it again, is mentally ill and "largely incoherent," according to a report seeking a psychiatric evaluation.

After the request was filed in Roanoke Circuit Court, a judge ordered an evaluation of Anderson, who is charged with arson, attempted murder and attempted malicious wounding in connection with a Dec. 21 fire at his home on Patton Avenue Northwest.

Anderson is accused of starting a fire in an upstairs bedroom of his house, then throwing a knife at a police officer who responded to the blaze.

In 1982, Anderson was accused of setting a fire on Patton Avenue that spread to an adjacent home and killed a 66-year-old woman. He became the youngest person in Virginia to be charged with murder, but a judge dismissed the charge after ruling that Anderson was unable to help with his defense and did not understand what he was accused of doing.

That still could be the case today, court records suggest.

Anderson is "extremely slow at grasping critical legal matters," Assistant Public Defender William Fitzpatrick wrote in the request for a mental evaluation, and does not seem to understand the "enormity of his situation."

The 19-year-old has given incorrect information about his past, Fitzpatrick wrote, and sometimes will respond to a question by stating a number while holding up a conflicting number of fingers.

Since he was 6 years old, Anderson has received a total of 34 psychological evaluations and most recently was diagnosed as suffering from a schizoaffective disorder, a form of schizophrenia.

Other possibilities of an organic personality disorder need to be explored further, Fitzpatrick said in asking that Anderson be examined to determine his competency to stand trial and his mental state at the time of the offense.

The evaluation is expected to be completed within a few weeks.

When the murder charge against him was dismissed in 1982, a judge ordered that Anderson receive counseling and instruction about the dangers of fire.

Anderson had been "acting strangely" in the week before the Dec. 21, 1994, fire, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Greg Phillips said earlier. Authorities believe he became angry and set the fire after his grandmother mentioned that he might have to receive psychiatric treatment.

by CNB