Brno, July 19 (CTK) – Kevin Dahlgren, a U.S. citizen suspected of murdering a four-member Czech family, has strong features of emotional instability, negativist and dissocial ones that cause a severe personality disorder, a psychologist told the court yesterday, adding that Dahlgren wanted to be a great negative hero.
The psychologist, Beata Nour Mohammadi, was speaking during the trial of Dahlgren, 24, who has been charged with killing a family of his Czech cousin in Brno-Ivanovice in May 2013.
Dahlgren, who has refused to give his testimony, may face up to life imprisonment if found guilty.
During his stay in custody, Dahlgren attempted to cut himself with a blade, and he tried to tear a truncheon from a warden’s hand. The wardens handcuffed him and he was taken to the psychiatric ward of the prison hospital, according to a report read in the courtroom yesterday.
Dahlgren’s defence lawyer Richard Spisek insisted that Dahlgren is and was not mentally healthy and that detention would be more acceptable for him than imprisonment.
Psychiatrist Milena Zimulova, who testified in the court in June, said Dahlgren suffers from a combined personality disorder that causes his internal tension and emotional instability. This, however, does not mean that he could not control his behaviour during the tragical event, Zimulova said.
Spisek said U.S. expert opinions’ are more favourable to Dahlgren.
The judge read them yesterday. Psychiatrist Robert Sadoff wrote in his assessment that Dahlgren suffers from psychosis, including hallucinations, and was unable to control his behaviour during the tragedy.
Similarly, a U.S. psychologist wrote that Dahlgren suffers from a schizoaffective disorder and was unable to control his behaviour.
Czech psychologist Nour Mohammadi, who had eight meetings with Dahlgren in the past months, said he enjoyed speaking about himself.
As a third- or fourth-grade schoolboy, he started to suffer from anxieties and feared that an assassin would jump out from a wardrobe and attack him. He imagined himself killing his family and setting things on fire.
Based on this, his aggressive potential started to develop. He wanted to become a great negative hero of whom everybody is afraid. He believed he need not be afraid as long as all are afraid of him, Nour Mohammadi said, citing Dahlgren.
She said Dahlgren is psychically and sexually immature and self-focused.
“He has developed a superiority complex as defence against the complex of inferiority,” she said.
Dahlgren’s intelligence stands above the average and he is capable of testifying the truth if he decided to do so, Nour Mohammadi said.
She said Dahlgren welcomed the invitation to visit his relatives in Brno as a relief, a signal in an unfavourable period. He felt tension when flying from overseas already as he feared that he would fail in the Czech Republic.
Once in Brno, he initially felt happy, but then his negative feelings returned. He felt like in a trap and feared a total failure, which always strongly scared him.
That is why he might have decided to take the cruel step as a catharsis relieving him of huge internal tension, Nour Mohammadi said.
Dahlgren’s parents were present in the courtroom yesterday. The father, Wayne Dahlgren, repeatedly voiced support for his son.
Dahlgren is suspected of having brutally killed the family with whom he lived in Brno, the father, the mother and their two sons including an underage one. Immediately afterwards he left for the USA but the FBI arrested him on his arrival in Washington based on the warning from the Czech police.
Dahlgren is the first U.S. citizen to be extradited for prosecution in the Czech Republic.
His trial started at the Brno Regional Court in late May.
rtj/dr/hol
