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U.S. NEWS Wednesday 21 november 2018
Man enters insanity plea in killing

of mom at hospital

By MICHAEL CASEY with Frink being able to
Associated Press plead not guilty by reason
NORTH HAVERHILL, N.H. of insanity.
(AP) — A man accused of “I don’t believe some-
gunning down his mother body should be not guilty
last year as she lay in an because of insanity. They
intensive care unit plead- should be found guilty but
ed not guilty by reason of insane. People who go
insanity Tuesday, as family around killing people, do-
members expressed fears ing bad things, need to
that he would be released pay for the consequences
too soon and harm others. of their act,” he said. “Be-
A handcuffed Travis Frink, cause he is my stepson,
50, of Warwick, Rhode Is- I’m torn between the love I
land, accepted the plea have for him and the hate I
at a hearing in Grafton have for what he did.”
County Superior Court af- Neither Frink nor his lawyer Travis Frink, of Warwick, R.I., looks back into Grafton Superior
court after pleading not guilty by reason of insanity to charges
ter initially insisting he was responded to the family’s of first and second degree murder in North Haverhill, N.H.,
not guilty. He was charged allegations in court, and his Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018, in the shooting death of his mother
with shooting Pamela Fer- lawyer left without talking Pamela Ferriere, of Groton, N.H.
riere, 70, a patient at Dart- to reporters. Associated Press
mouth-Hitchcock Medical Bob Ferriere said last year for the past decade with the military with a traumat-
Center in Lebanon. Ferriere that his stepson struggled PTSD after he returned from ic brain injury.q
was being treated for an
aneurysm.
Judge Peter Bornstein
committed Frink to the
state prison’s secure psy-
chiatric unit for up to five
years. The sentence made
sense, he said, in light of
mental health assessments
that found Frink had bipo-
lar disorder and other men-
tal illnesses.
After his arrest, Frink
claimed he shot his mother
because she had abused
him as a child, allegations
police couldn’t verify.
Then, his claims grew more
bizarre and he told police
he had been taken from
the womb, raised in a lab
and subjected to a “sadis-
tic scientific experiment.”
No one from his family was
in court. But in letters read
out by prosecutors, family
members described two
different people — one
on his medications and
one off. At his worst, the
relatives described him as
an insane and dangerous
person who beat his chil-
dren and played a role in
his wife’s death. All said
they feared for their safety,
should he be released af-
ter five years.
“I’m afraid if he ever gets
out and gets off his medi-
cine he could even do
worse than what he has
done,” Pamela Ferriere’s
husband, Bob Ferriere, said
in a phone interview.
Bob Ferrier also took issue