PORTLAND — During closing arguments this morning, lawyers for the prosecution and for Chad Gurney had one last shot to state their cases to Justice Roland Cole, at the conclusion of an intense two-week murder trial.

Cole will decide Gurney’s legal fate because the 29-year-old defendant waived his right to a jury.

The judge said he will read through medical reports and other case documents and he hopes to deliver a verdict at a hearing next week.

Gurney was charged with murder in the May 25, 2009, killing of 18-year-old Zoe Sarnacki, a former Deering High School student. He turned himself in to police about 12 hours after the killing, and admitted that he strangled Sarnacki, mutilated her body and set fire to his Cumberland Avenue apartment.

He has pleaded not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.

At the trial, his lawyers argued that Gurney was psychotic at the time of the killing, was severely delusional and he lacked the capacity to understand the consequences of his actions.

Advertisement

Their key witness was Dr. Harold Bursztajn, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist who examined Gurney and concluded that his psychosis was primarily the result of a prior brain injury, exacerbated by Gurney’s decision to wean himself off narcotic painkillers in the months leading up to Sarnacki’s death.

“This case has always been about why. Why did Chad Gurney end the life of Zoe Sarnacki?” lawyer Sarah Churchill said in her closing argument.

“Ms. Sarnacki died because Chad Gurney was suffering from a mental disease or defect on May 25, 2009.”

Churchill said evidence of Gurney’s delusional thinking was seen in his interaction with friends, journal entries, e-mails, text messages and his behavior both before and after the killing.

“The why only has one reasonable answer in this case,” Churchill said. It was because of Gurney’s “concrete belief that Zoe was a test, she was a reflection of himself, she was godlike, and he was sending her off to eternal life.”

The lead prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese, told Cole that all the evidence – except for the opinion provided by the doctor hired by the defense – indicated Gurney had the mental capacity to understand the consequences of his actions at the time he killed Sarnacki.

Advertisement

“Judge this case isn’t even close,” Marchese said. “Chad Gurney not only knew what he did was wrong, but he didn’t suffer from a major mental illness” of the type spelled out by the state law regarding an insanity defense.

Marchese noted the opinions of two psychologists and a psychiatrist who evaluated Gurney in the months after the killing. Those doctors testified that Gurney suffered from a personality disorder marked by anger, impulsiveness and disturbed thinking, including reading “signs” in his surroundings. But they did not believe he lacked the capacity to understand the wrongfulness of his conduct.

“The affirmative defense of (not criminally responsible) is reserved for those truly psychotic, truly mentally ill people who don’t appreciate that what they are doing is wrong,” Marchese said. “Chad Gurney just isn’t one of those people.”

10:26 a.m.

PORTLAND — Lawyers are delivering closing arguments this morning at the murder trial of Chad Gurney at Cumberland County Superior Court.

Then it will be up to Justice Roland Cole to determine whether Gurney was legally insane on May 25, 2009, when he killed Zoe Sarnacki in his Portland apartment, and whether he belongs in the state prison in Warren or the state psychiatric hospital in Augusta.

“I’ll try to get a decision soon” after closing arguments, Cole told both sides after testimony on Wednesday.

The judge can take as long as he needs to reach a verdict. Gurney, 29, waived his right to a jury for his trial, which opened Jan. 10 in Cumberland County Superior Court.

 


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.