FORT WORTH -- Six mental health experts have concluded that murder defendant Colette Reyes has schizophrenia, depression and paranoia to such a degree that she is not competent to stand trial in the death of her husband, her attorney told a jury Thursday.
The psychological expert who testified for the prosecution disagreed with all of them.When prosecutor Sean Colston suggested that Reyes was faking or exaggerating her mental illness, Reyes muttered rambling sentences and attempted to leave the defense table."Lord Jesus, it's demons," she said. "I just want to walk off the bridge and into the water. Everybody in my life said we're faking. We don't fake."Moments later, Reyes, 54, laid her head on the defense table and looked as though she was sleeping peacefully.Reyes is charged with murder. Jurors seated Thursday in state District Judge Everett Young's court are to determine whether she is competent to face a trial. The hearing continues today.On Nov. 22, 2009, Reyes was arrested by officers who responded to a 911 call about a shooting at her home in the 1800 block of Lakeside Drive in Arlington. Police found her husband, Arthur Alexander Reyes, 45, dead in the garage.Arthur Reyes was a popular professor at the University of Texas at Arlington who had instructed his attorney to draw up divorce paperwork, which was filed the day after he died.Reyes spent the night of her husband's death in the Arlington jail and later was taken to North Texas State Hospital in Vernon where she was placed in psychiatric care. But most of the time since then, Reyes has been free on bail.Reyes graduated from Polytechnic University of New York with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering and had been enrolled in a nursing degree program at UTA, Colston told jurors. She has complied with bail restrictions by asking permission to travel out of state and uses her computer to pay her bills, Colston said. If Reyes functions that well in life, she can answer the murder charge against her, he said.The court's psychological expert, Antoinette McGarrahan, suggested that Reyes was trying to game the system."The only times we've seen the outburst is when [Reyes] understood that what I was saying or what Mr. Colston was saying would not be helpful to her legal situation," McGarrahan testified.The legal term for faking or exaggerating of symptoms of mental illness is malingering, and psychological tests can detect malingering, Colston said.Emily Fallis, Ball's psychological expert, said she never tested Reyes for malingering because of her poor mental health."I was concerned that Ms. Reyes would not be able to participate in the testing," Fallis testified.McGarrahan said that Reyes scored 17 on one test that could detect malingering, well above the cutoff score of 6 that indicated that a subject is lying or exaggerating symptoms.Ball asked McGarrahan if she thought the six mental health professionals who found Reyes incompetent were wrong. McGarrahan responded that she has a difference of opinion with them."I based the diagnosis of malingering on the tests and the travel, paying bills online," McGarrahan said. "One mental health professional believed she suffered from mental problems and then the others just followed along."Mitch Mitchell, 817-390-7752Twitter: @mitchmitchel3Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
