Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 7, 1992 TAG: 9203070296
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium
"He did not, as Shawn Novak, understand what he was doing," Dr. Robert Showalter testified Friday in Novak's capital murder trial. "The driving force was the Kender character."
Kender was the name used by Novak for an imaginary character that, according to Showalter, sometimes fused with Novak. He said the youth was "unusually preoccupied" with fantasy to the point of being mentally ill.
Novak's writings and drawings "made it very clear that he spent a tremendous amount of time living a private fantasy life" with many imaginary characters, particularly Kender, the psychiatrist said.
Showalter, a Harrisonburg psychiatrist and member of the University of Virginia medical faculty, was the defense's chief witness in efforts to show that Novak was insane at the time of the March 4, 1991 slayings of Daniel Wayne Geier, 9, and Christopher Scot Weaver, 7. The boys were cut and stabbed in a wooded area near the neighborhood where they and Novak lived.
Showalter told the jury that Novak, 17, suffered from a form of schizophrenia that occurs in about 3 percent of the population. Only a few of those people turn violent, he said. He said Novak's personality did not show signs of violence.
But he said an episode of playing with the younger boys in a forest setting apparently brought on the Kender character who saw the children as a fantasy evil force, and the results were tragic.
Dr. Donald Mingione, a Norfolk psychiatrist called by the prosecution, said Novak showed no impairment of his ability to relate to reality. He said the teen exhibited only typical problems of adolescence, including aspects of insecurity, low self-esteem and a need to feel appreciated.
Showalter said symptoms of Novak's mental illness included difficulty in relating to other people, inappropriate behavior and peculiar ideas.
by CNB