Trial set for dad charged in a slaying (Pear Park, Colorado)

The shrinks are arguing as to whether dad ALLEN GRABE was sane when he shot his 13-year-old son to death.

http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/news/stories/2009/09/30/100109_3a_Allen_Grabe_folo.html

Trial set for father charged in son’s slaying

By PAUL SHOCKLEY/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

A jury trial is set for three weeks in March for a Pear Park man charged in the slaying of his 13-year-old son.

Allen Grabe, 52, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting death of Jacob Grabe, was scheduled Wednesday by District Judge Brian Flynn for trial starting March 22.

The trial setting comes after three separate doctors have reached different conclusions on the question of whether Grabe was legally insane when he shot his son nine times on the night of Sept. 11, 2008.

The findings of Grabe’s most recent sanity evaluation by a doctor with the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo were not discussed in court Wednesday.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Rubinstein told the judge the findings were different from a pair of evaluations in May.

Two doctors, one with the Pueblo state hospital and another hired by Grabe’s public defenders, concluded that Grabe was insane at the time of the shooting.

The doctors, however, gave different reasons for reaching their insanity conclusions.

The state’s evaluation found Grabe knew the difference between right and wrong, but wasn’t able to form the culpable mental state required under Colorado law to commit first-degree murder.

The defense’s doctor concluded Grabe was insane, but for reasons opposite than the state’s findings.

Steve Colvin, Grabe’s public defender, offered no objection in June to a third evaluation of his client’s sanity.

Grabe is charged with first-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death.

In Grabe’s first state evaluation, a doctor wrote that Grabe performed what he believed to be a mercy killing of his son, who had been treated for Asperger’s syndrome, a neurological disorder similar to autism.

Allen Grabe allegedly told his wife he “had to” shoot the boy because, “you were ruining him,” according to an arrest affidavit.