This makes me very sad.
What a tragic case, indeed.


From CNN.com



CHARLESTON, South Carolina (CNN) -- A jury convicted a 15-year-old boy of two counts of murder Tuesday in the killings of his grandparents, rejecting defense arguments that taking the antidepressant Zoloft drove the boy to kill.
Chris Pittman stood trial as an adult in the November 2001 slayings of his paternal grandparents, Joe and Joy Pittman.

The teen faces a sentence of 30 years to life in prison on each count. A judge is scheduled to sentence the boy Tuesday afternoon.

In closing arguments Monday, prosecutor John Meadors belittled the defense's contention that Zoloft influenced Pittman, then 12, to carry out the shootings, calling such an argument a "smoke screen."

"The only issue is -- did he know the difference between right and wrong?" Meadors said...


In a revised warning posted recently on its Web site, the FDA said the drugs "increased the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in short-term studies of adolescents and children" with depression and other psychiatric disorders. (Full story (http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/02/09/fda.antidepressant/index.html))

That is sad. 12 years old at the time. Wow. He's given up his best years. I hope somehow that boy can get the help he needs to overcome his anger issues.

I'm just curious- what is everyone's opinions on this case?

Do you think the Zoloft defense was an honest one? or was it just a ploy to get him off?

I think there actually may be some merit behind it. I'm just curious as to what ya'll think.

My opinion----The Zoloft had nothing to do with it. The boy was angry so he killed.

ONE

Christopher faces 30 years to life in prison

That last sentence above got to me:

This is what happens in a civilised country...in this case the Netherlands.

If he had been under 12 he would be untouchable by Dutch law. Provided the offender has reached the age of 12 years, his or her more serious crimes are dealt with by the public prosecutor, and in a minority of cases by the juvenile judge. As is the case all over the world, the prosecutor gives his opinion on how the case should be dealt with, he asks the court to impose an appropriate sanction. Community service takes an important place in the sanctioning of juvenile crimes. The prosecutor can arrange for a maximum of 40 hours of 'taakstraf' - the Dutch equivalent of community service - as long as the young offender is prepared to work in stead of being brought to court. The juvenile judge can impose 6 month of youth detention, the court - with three judges can impose an imprisonment for 12 month when the offender is not older than 15 years, and when he or she is 16 or 17 years of age, the youth detention can amount to two years. The amount of community service- hours is limited to 240 hours.Of the intervention ratio, some 82%, about a third part results in a community service order according to the prosecution model, and another third in a judge given sentence of community service. Youth detention limits to no more than 8,9% of the intervention.
The outcome is that the Dutch juvenile penal system is leaning heavily on cso's, and deliberately so. The guideline in juvenile penal cases has as her starting point the application of community service orders, unless there is a very specific reason not to.
The Dutch system, in their own words, believes that ever more severe punishments don't result in less recidivism, so they invest the money in different settlements.

Given the circumstance, if he had grown up in the Netherlands, my guess is he wouldn't be incarcerated...but in any case it couldn't be for more than 1 year.

Since you asked, my feeling is that the zoloft is certainly not to blame.

Sad that he had to learn about poor choices so young. And I can't judge. But I think they're right, it sounds like a smoke screen to me.

But I'm still sad for him and his family. Maybe they'll join us here for support one of these days.

I think there was more going on than the Zoloft. This is from an article in The Herald (Rock Hill, SC):

Witness: Bombs, fires preceded killings
By Jason Cato The Herald


(Published February 11‚ 2005)

CHARLESTON -- Fits of anger would sometimes send Christopher Pittman off to make homemade bombs or set fires long before he killed his grandparents, a state forensic psychiatrist testified Thursday in the boy's double-murder trial.
Dr. Pamela Crawford, who works for the S.C. Department of Mental Health and evaluated Pittman for the court, said he told her that he'd make homemade napalm bombs from styrofoam and gasoline as well as aluminum bombs from drain cleaner, gasoline and foil...
Full Story: http://www.heraldonline.com/

As I responded to Titantoo post on this same case, the odds were not in his favor based on several other court cases. 12 years old is way to young to be killing people. Every kid in America has been upset at their parents and thats part of life but they don't take a .410 shotgun to their bedroom.

Just and FYI. Most .410 shotguns are single shot so that means that he had to reload three time to kill then.

They all knew the boy had a problem or he wouldn't have been on Zoloft. I don't believe someone at 12 years old or even 17 realizes what they are actually doing when they commit a crime. I believe that a mentally ill person or someone with a personality problem needs deep treatment and prison is not the place to get it.
Noone actually knows the effect of any drug on every individual, I believe Zoloft or lack of could have had an effect on the boy's crime.

Buddy

It's evident that this boy needed help. So many children miss getting adequate treatment. And even in the best situations, it sometimes takes a long time to diagnose and get the right mix of medication. I don't think that he should have been tried as an adult and I don't think that prison time is going to help him. How does warehousing help anybody?

I've said it again and again, we send our children off to daycare to be raised by strangers. we put them in warehouse school systems and expect them to follow rules that they may or may not have been taught at home. Any sign of trouble and we drug them. The instant our children act out we say Behavior problem and throw them away. What has happend to that boy and his family makes me sick. What a fine judicial system we have. Just think some day the "boy" will be a man and what kind of man will he be?

I think that a lot of children and grown ups get diagnosed with "depression" or whatever and in reality it might be more than that..maybe he had somethine more serious...maybe he had schizophrenia or soemthing and was never fully diagnosed. :(

It's evident that this boy needed help. So many children miss getting adequate treatment. And even in the best situations, it sometimes takes a long time to diagnose and get the right mix of medication. I don't think that he should have been tried as an adult and I don't think that prison time is going to help him. How does warehousing help anybody?
PERFECT.

You said exactly what I feel. Thank-you.

What good does it do anyone to warehouse this boy? Prisons, at least the concept of them, I thought was to promote rehabilitation in addition to punishment. However, I never see the rehab part!
What kind of treatment/rehabilitation will this young man receive? I'll bet next to nothing.

And let's not even get into the way he'll be treated by other inmates in prison. I sincerely hope that our broken, often moronic justice system actually makes a good decision and keeps him OUT OF the general population. He should receive extensive counseling above all else.

Of course, I feel sorry for the victims and their families. However, I feel JUST as bad for the young man. I wish I could just storm in there and take him away- I'd let him live here.

Has anyone seen his pictures on Cnn.com? He looks so devastated. The reports say that he didn't show any emotion, that he was cold and heartless... well... take a look at those pics! He doesn't look very emotionless to me.

What a tragic case.:(

I agree. Just because he didn't put on a show for the media, doesn't mean that he has no emotion. He's a teenager -- he's not going to show that in front of other people and on TV! It was there though, you could see it in his eyes. There is an appeal. It will be interesting to see what happens with that.

About the age thing with him being 12 when it happened. Now thank god the supreme court passed a law stating that if the crime happens before the 18th birthday then they can't get the death penalty, but with the kid being 12 he can be tried as an adult because of the seriousness of his crime. Take the one case where the boy and girl were wrestling and she died she was 6 or 7 the boy was around the age of 12 and he got life in prision so, age doesn't matter except when it comes to the death penalty.

i dont think the zoloft had anything to do with him murdering his grandparents. he was not on the medication long enough for it to make a change in his behavior. i was on zoloft and it did effect how i acted. i was given it for depression and after about a month and a half of taking it it started making me feel more depressed than ever. i think if you kinda look at the whole way they were killed it looks planned. but i dont know. i dont know what was going through that boys head.

i believe after the first appeal he got out basically long enough to say hi and bye to everyone and then they put him back in. he got like 30 years or so. i dont know if they are going to for an appeal again.

Hello,
I am a child adovate for NC/SC . And have been and continue to work on Chris's case. I know this family and have come to know Chris.

I truly believe that if this child had not been given these drugs this tragic chain of events would never had happened.

There is to much evidence coming to light now about these drugs and their side effects on children.

I have first hand experience how these drugs can affect children , so for me i can accept it easier than most. my experience with it was it turned a little boy into this child I did not know , no emotion, no remorse, anger bursts,fighting etc it was there. The thing that really scared me to death one day i looked into his eyes and the only way that I can honestly describe it is it was like I was looking into the eyes of someone without a soul. There was absoutley nothing there but a shell of this little boy. that was it for me , took him off those drugs and once it was out of his system he turned back into the child I once knew.

And this is what happened to Chris. Once they dicontinued the drugs in detention he returned being the child he was.

It was never mentioned in the court that you do not mix paxil and Zoloft. You have to wait at least 2 weeks to get one out of the system before starting the other. this was not done with Chris he had both of these mind altering drugs in his system at the same time.

I am working on his appeal and hope That something will go right for this child.
We also have to remember he was a 12 year old child 5 feet tall and 96 pound 6th grader under no circumstances should a child ever be tried and convicted as an adult and senteneced to 30 years .

please go to the petition section in this forum I have a petition there for a bill on juvenile justice reform called Christophers bill. and I will be presenting it to the SC house next session

please sign and passit on

thanks
Janet Sisk

A very sad case indeed. Whether Zoloft had any part in it is anyone's guess, however the previous poster is correct the two antidepressants should not be in the system at the same time. They each have their own side effects and who knows what the combination of the two might trigger. I don't think there are studies out on that scenerio.

Either way 30yrs in my opinion for someone this young is totally ridiculous. Such a waste of a human life.

May someone be able to step in and see that true justice is served in this case. It is very sad indeed.

Just my rambling thoughts.

Chris Pittman and my youngest sister went to school together, so this case is very close to me. I knew his grandparents from the church. They tried the best they could with him, but he was so unruly. He was constantly causing problems and making scenes. I think that he was messed up before the meds. It is my honest opinion that he knew what he was doing and he knew it was wrong. I'm sorry if that makes me sound like a bad person, but I think that the jury was right in their decision.

Being part of PTO probably makes us all more sympathetic to prison related issues. We can see our loved ones in the same situation and our hearts go out to them and their families. We have to step back to get a more objective view.

I also think that if you know someone while they are growing up, it's a good indication of how they will turn out later. Just reading an article from a newspaper doesn't give you that perspective. You are not a "bad person" just a more informed one.

Whether it was the drugs or just plain stupidity on his fault he was not even a teenager. That alone should send out a signal something is not right with this childs mind. Still havent figured out how you cant vote buy cigarettes or alcohol or even sign a legal document until your 18 but they can try a child as an adult. Not to be mean or judegemental but if 30 yrs is all he got then consider him self one lucky kid. Just think about the florida john silva case. 14 at the time of his crime and 15 when he was sentenced to LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE. That still makes me sick to my stomach

I don't think it had anything to do with Zoloft.It sounds to me he was and is a very angry fellow.I don't beleive those kind of drugs do that.I take prozacs and have been on them for many years,I had a lot of emotional problems in the beginning,sadness,lonliness and anger,all they did was help me.
I hope they will be able to bring some peace to this boy's life.

Whether it was or was not a drug-aided crime, the fact of his age alone should dictate that he be placed in a mental health care facility and counselled intensively until a valid decision can be made about the possibility that he is psychopathic. The way things are at this point, he will go to prison (whether juvenile or adult) and come out in 30 years with an "anger management" course or two under his belt and damned little else - talk about a ticking time-bomb! After a couple of rounds in the SHU, and the kind parenting of the cons surrounding him, he'll come out . . . to what?
I can hardly think of a worse way to manage it.