Psychologist Details Aiden Fucci's "Unusual" Fantasies & Trauma

doctor you did a a thorough job and you did address the nature and circumstances of the offense um in which is uh factor a for the court in your report um the court has heard a lot about that this morning already as I believe you've been here as well through other Witnesses so I don't need you to recite those again but just as they're relevant to the other factors yes we'll just bring them up um as we walk through these I kind of want to start with factor C in this case that factor had you analyze and look at the defendant's age maturity intellectual capacity General mental and emotional health at the time of the offense and so I kind of want to talk and that's a big a big section in your report but I want to go through that um and see what you were able to glean from the records of importance about uh Mr Fuji in those areas at the time and so we can start with teachers or however you want to to start with that um I think just if we will take take each each uh you know descriptor here individually like age for example factually Mr fucci was 14 and a half years old when this incident occurred the next uh descriptor under the C factor is maturity and maturity is sometimes a difficult thing to assess in many cases you will have commentary in the records from for example teachers that describe the individual as mature or immature so what I noted with regard to maturity for Aidan fucci at the time was that there was in all the records that I reviewed there was no commentary that Mr fucci was immature okay so I thought that was fairly remarkable that nobody's characterizing him as immature for his age I did see two uh characterizations of Mr Fuji being mature so one of those characterizations came from his juvenile probation officer who has contact with him at the jail officer Barton described him as mature for his age I also noted that his best friend Trey just when describing Aidan fucci described him as more mature than the peers which is part of the reason that Trey described that he got along well with Mr fucci so those were the only specific references to his maturity status from all of the records in our review and similarly related to maturity I think you have some comments noted about um whether he was like a leader characterized as a leader or a follower amongst his peers that's sometimes you kind of glean a maturity level based on whether they're considered leaders in their classrooms or with their peers or conversely followers so obviously when somebody is described as a leader they tend to be more mature than the peers that they're hanging around it with which is why they are characterized as Leaders so I saw two references one from Girlfriends offie Bowman and one from friend Michaela Harris that they believed and they perceived that Mr fucci was the leader when it came to him and his best friend Trey Absher okay the next sort of descriptor in that factor is intellectual capacity or intelligence what were you able to determine about Mr fucci's intelligence based on the records you have so I think the best place to start in terms of intelligence is this his intelligence was never formally tested so there's no school records that indicate he was given a formal uh wet Shore intelligence scale for children would be the standard one so there's no indication that he was given one of those in the school environment again though I didn't see characterizations of Mr fucci being unintelligent or having cognitive problems can we see cognitive problems it's it's synonymous with intellectual problems being not very smart or having cognitive processing or comprehension problems there was no characterizations of that the only specific reference I saw to Mr fucci's intelligence came from Sergeant Cox at the Duval County jail he described Mr fucci as intelligent but without many Street smarts raids and how he was categorized at school if you'll describe that and perhaps the difference between academics and what you just discussed as intelligence okay so um in school he was he was in special education classes so he was he was in ese which stands for exceptional student education classes um his designation under that ESC umbrella there's a lot of different designations some refer to designations because of cognitive or intellectual limitations some of them refer to limitations because of academic difficulties which is separate from cognitive intellectual it's academic some of the designations under the ESC umbrella have to do with behavioral issues like emotional handicap so Mr fucci was in special education classes for specific learning disability acronym sld NOW what sld generally means in the school environment is the the students academic performance is lower than what is expected given his intellectual capacity so in other words he's underperforming academically okay so he was in sld classes and he was recognized as having some academic difficulties pretty consistently he was described in School environment as struggling academically okay in in specific areas so specific learning disabilities so specific for Mr fucci was language arts like reading and math those were appeared to be his two primary areas of academic uh academic difficulty so um you know he had tutors he had he had services in that sld curricula where he had ese teachers who would spend individualized time with him he still struggled in those areas now there was another indication of academic uh I would say academic deficiency relative to peers so there's a Florida standard assessment it's a standardized academic measure that is given to every student yearly to see where they match up with their peers their same age peers in terms of academic performance in a number of different subjects so Mr fucci took these standard standard I'm sorry Florida standard assessment each year year like all the other students the scale is basically one to five five is the best that means Mastery whereas one is the worst which means the the term they use is inadequate Mr fucci scored in the one the inadequate range pretty consistently in language arts and in math and at least one time in science too so clearly those were some some specific problems for him in in the academic environment and what about his grade you reference I believe kind of starting I think it went back to fourth grade and then right how they go over time right the the grades were never great he had some better years and some worse years it looked like his worst year was likely the sixth grade sixth grade it was it was a lot of D's and F's not all D's and F's but a lot of D's and F's um however I noted that in seventh and eighth grade his grades seemed to get a little better it seemed like maybe at that time he was getting a little more individualized attention in the uh in the sld exceptional student education uh context so his grades in seventh and eighth grades were you know a couple of A's a couple of B's um several C's 1D One F I think that was seventh grade and then eighth grade it was similar so it was kind of all from some A's at least one F but I would say in in average it was probably C average if you averaged all of the grades so his grades weren't um weren't terrible they weren't good they were kind of middle of the road except worse when he was in the sixth grade and seemed to get better now I noted that there was a uh it's called an IEP standing for individualized Education plan these students that are in the ESC curricula they are given a individualized education plan so they can map out kind of goals for the student I noted noted the last one for Mr fucci was was put together in April of 2021 which would have been one month before uh before the murder so at that point in time he was still on track to receive a standard high school diploma so sometimes when it's obvious that a child is not going to academically be able to achieve to the point to get a standard high school diploma they will get what's called a special education diploma and Mr fucci's Case his last IEP indicated that he was still on track to receive a standard high school diploma one other thing that was referenced in that IEP was there's a question on the IEPs does the child's Behavior interfere with his academic achievement or the achievement of other students so on that last IEP that question was answered yes so there was another dimension here with Mr fucci and that Dimension is he had some behavioral issues in school as well if you're in just a minute but before we get to that along this line of his ESC and sld designations when you reviewed all of the information from the teachers there was a dean in that mix I believe a dean of discipline and the teachers did their descriptions out of him and his performance were they consistent with that descriptor of an academic problem versus the actual cognitive intellectual and explain that a little bit to the court of his expertise repeat your question please yeah I'm asking him if the teachers provided any information to support his opinion that Mr Fuji had more of an academic problem than a cognitive problem objection is overruled yes it was fairly consistent from the teacher's perspective and again there was no reference to him having cognitive deficits like Mr fucci isn't bright or he's struggling cognitively the consistent characterization by teachers was that he has the ability and the capacity to achieve academically but his motivation is lacking so it was that other component was some behavioral issues excuse me some lack of motivation some lack of effort that was also getting in the way of his academic performance okay there you were going to move on to the behavior and disciplinary issues that could be playing a part in in these grades and things that you saw is that right right it kind of goes hand in hand when we have students who behaviorally they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing they're getting in a lot of trouble maybe suspensions then that can affect their academic progress because they're not always listening to the learning that is provided by the teacher or um you know these grades one through all the way through 12. each grade Builds on the next in terms of skills so if the student isn't picking it up because their behavior is poor they're not motivated then as they progress through school their academics are usually going to get worse okay so what I noted about Mr fucci in terms of his behavior in the third grade his behavior was was characterized as pretty good so he he got satisfactory ratings from his teachers in terms of his conduct in essentially every area excuse me by fourth grade there seemed to be some indication that his behavior was getting a little worse so there were some characterizations by teachers that uh he wasn't always um motivated to do his best uh he wasn't always controlling his conduct so you saw that a little more in fourth grade and it seemed to get worse as time went on which is not unusual a lot of times with adolescents with pubescence when a child gets to be 12 there's hormones and there's different social demands and sometimes that's when we really see the the bad behavior emerge from a child who maybe had demonstrated fairly good behavior before then um so we see that so I noted that he had between February of 2018. so February 2018 Mr fucci would have been 11 years old um and April of 2021 which again is a month before the murder and he would have been 14 years old so in that span of three years he had 22 disciplinary referrals okay so so that's a fairly High number in a school environment okay 22 disciplinary referrals so I I noted the nature of the disciplinary referrals were they violent were they not violent I noted that two were violent which is not it's not a real high number of violent incidents but in uh in May of 2019 [Music] but over objection you may testify to this doctor in May of 2019 and again in October of 2019 he had two disciplinary referrals for punching another student in the face I saw a disciplinary referral in March of 2019 where he was uh referred because he was cheating he had the math answers on his phone I saw mostly disciplinary referrals for characterizations of him being disrespectful to teachers um disruptive in the class environment or just kind of oppositional with with teacher demands and also on the bus so those disciplinary issues over that span of time resulted in at least three out of school suspensions and at least four in-school suspensions so that's again between 11 and 14 which he was in eighth when he was in 14 so that would have been going back to about the sixth grade where behavioral things seem to very likely affect his progress and his academics which the majority of his teachers recognized and talked about how does that compare to you know comparing the individual of Aidan fucci to a group of his peers juveniles and what you know about the comp the occurrence of suspensions and things like that right it's it's important to know because in a vacuum we don't know if that's relevant or not so but it's not in a vacuum so what we know is that individuals in school juveniles that's kindergarten through 12th grade suspensions rates nationally in this was 2019 was uh five percent so five percent of students got suspended at least one time that was actually down from a couple of years before that where it was seven percent but it it hovers around that area in in the last 10 years or so we're five six seven percent of students um get at least one suspension during a year so the point is it's on you usual so we can we can uh knowledgeably say that Mr fucci getting suspended from school is unusual for his group of peers relative to his group of peers it's an unusual thing and it it you know provides us some information to make some judgments about and then I think you've already commented on the the teachers but teachers and then I believe uh his two closest friends Sophie and Trey provide a lot of that insight for you is that right yes that's um mental and emotional health if I may I'll go back over the teachers a little bit just because I didn't cover everything so there was some consistency in what teachers related about their experience with Mr fucci and there were some things that were a little bit inconsistency and inconsistent between teachers the consistent points where teachers said consistently without exception he has the ability to understand and comprehend okay he seems to understand right from wrong he seemed to understand there were consequences for inappropriate conduct or not doing your work or whatever they all were consistent in relating that they had never seen Mr Fuji uh appearing that he was responding to voices in his head or making the verbalization that he heard voices in his head so those were the consistent things among amongst teachers and I think really relevant it speaks to a lot of things including he you know ability to appreciate risks and consequences in general understanding right from wrong he knew these things in a general way according to to um teachers now some of the inconsistent things between teachers uh you know there was bad and good one of his ese teachers that spent a lot of time with him in the seventh grade was Alyssa Gates and she said Aiden was a pleasure to work with he worked hard there was no behavioral issues whatsoever he did what she asked asked him to do seemed to want to do well and Achieve so that's kind of one end of the spectrum from one teacher whereas other teachers for example one of the teachers uh you know described him straight out said he was a punk um his PE teacher it was a teacher Jay Shepard said that he was difficult to deal with um said that he rarely he was defiant and he would rarely dress out for PE said that he was aggressive uh and gave the example that Mr fucci would like plow through kids that were in his way because he wanted to walk where those children were standing so he just kind of plow through him characterized Mr fucci seemed to always want to get in a fight or an altercation was looking for it so a little bit of a mixed bag according to what teacher was characterizing their experience with Mr fucci in school and it kind of ran the gamut from quiet and respectful to kind of aggressive and and very defiant believe um Miss Gates she was from his previous School if you recall that seventh grade and if you recall the audios that you listened to which was the large amount of teachers were those his most recent teachers at law enforcement was interviewing shortly after the murder yes those were his most recent teachers at Patriot Oaks you're right Alyssa Gates was a later deposition and she had experience with Mr fucci at his previous School in the ESC department but the eighth grade teachers and and the dean and all those that you referenced that were at least more consistent those were all his current as of the date of the homicide that was and the teachers right and a lot of those consistencies that I mentioned I'll even mention that one of the teachers Mr wet Jim w-e-t-j-e-n he had known Mr fucci for quite a long time and described himself as a mentor to Mr Pucci so point being Mr fucci had at least one adult Mentor in the school environment that was trying to help him he said Mr fucci would seek him out if he was in trouble and they would talk about things so Mr Mr fucci seemed to have some you know positive positive people that he could contact in the school environment to help him out if he needed it is that all for the teachers and I think so then we move on to his peers Sophie and Trey and I know there's a lot of information from Sophie um that law enforcement gathered about him generally is emotional and mental health uh close in time to this crime so if you could talk about the things that are of significance to you and your ultimate opinions in this case right I think a good place to start is with some of the things that were described by girlfriend zafi Bowman now just as a context zafi Bowman and Aidan fucci had been dating since January of February of 2021 so so multiple months spent a lot of time together um Miss Bowman described that she and Mr fucci and some other peers they were kind of into what she described as Gore um what she described as horror h-o-r-r-o-r so they like to watch horror movies um they like to watch gory horror movies so she commented about that she also characterized that they all had what she described as dark humor okay so so that was part of the context where she disclosed some of this information um she said that she and Mr fucci talked a lot about things they saw on these horror shows and gory movies that a lot of times they would discuss death and killing in the context of these types of movies okay um but she she went beyond that a bit and she also described that um her words were that Mr fucci talked about death and killing a lot okay now he talked about death and killing a lot she gave a couple of examples when uh Mr fucci got really mad at her because she sent a picture of her in a photo with another guy that happened to be her sister's boyfriend or friend that was a boy and she said that Mr fucci got extremely upset about this and his reaction was to say he was going to kill that boy she also gave an example of zafi Bowman asking Mr fucci would you like to hang out with me in a couple of my guy friends and she said that Mr fucci's response to that was to talk about how he was going to kill those two guy friends so this is important because there was a lot of this killing in death talk from Mr Fuji that that's unusual um and and it was it was occurring outside of just the context of talking about gory movies right sometimes that was the context other times it wasn't like the example of him saying he was going to kill these boys that she was around in that same theme she talked about uh her words were um that Mr fucci talked about wanting to kill her and that he would sometimes do things to her like take his knife out and pretend to stab her or walk up behind her and pretend to Slit her throat now she indicated she wasn't scared of this she wasn't scared of Mr Fuji because she trusted him um with regard to those specific acts but but it was interesting that he would make the comment that he wanted to kill his girlfriend zafi Bowman she took it as kind of a joke and is not serious um she also made a a similar comment that I thought was significant that Sophie Bowman said that's basically why Mr fucci no longer stayed at my house because he talked about how easy it would be to kill me when I slept so you see this is this is going Beyond just kind of this talk about gory movies it's I'm not sleeping at your house because you would be really easy to kill while you're sleeping a really really peculiar um unusual rare kind of comment repeatedly made to uh one of Mr fucci's closest friends now it even it even goes beyond this okay so so this is the thing that is I think most relevant although the things I was talking about are relevant to this particular case but the most relevant um verbalizations by Mr fucci in the Tristan Bailey murder was zafi Bowman recalled Aiden fucci telling her that um basically asking what would you do if I really killed somebody and and then following that up with uh expect me to kill somebody um within this month so zoffie Bowman was asked if she could pin the date down she couldn't exactly pin it down but she said she believed that remark was made by Mr fucci in the month of May of 2021 the same month where the murder occurred okay and when talking about how he would kill so so really it's extensive it's not just a remark here and there it seemed to be a real fascination of his um when he talked about killing somebody he even told zafi Bowman how he would do it and what he told her was I would walk around at night and I would find somebody else walking at night I would drag them in the woods and I would stab them and then I would pretend like I didn't do it so that I could keep killing people no kind of again in the vacuum that's a weird statement that's a weird remark but this isn't in a vacuum when we examine that statement occurring close to when Tristan Bailey was murdered and how similar how remarkably similar it is it speaks to me it speaks to it speaks to emotional health first off it's it's unusual I can't stress that enough how unusual it is for a peer to be talking about this kind of thing so frequently in such detail with such core um it's just it's pretty bizarre and to to actually carry it out because that's the other thing we compare Mr fucci to his his population other juveniles juveniles sometimes make uh violent remarks juveniles sometimes talk about violent fantasies it isn't something that usually kind of predominates what they verbalize or is is a Fascination like it seemed to be with Mr Fuji but to get as specific as Mr fucci got in terms of talking with Sophie Bowman about the things he was thinking I think it it really suggests to me that he's giving a glimpse of what he's thinking about what he's fantasizing about she even said that she believed he was just talking about a fantasy but even so fantasy is rehearsal often it's a rehearsal of what we want to do or what we're interested in um so so there seemed to be a lot of that going on with uh with um Mr fucci preceding the murder of Tristan Bailey that it and it's different because he actually carried it out okay he carried out that fantasy he just didn't verbalize it he verbalized what he'd like to do and that he would do it soon and he actually did it which which suggests some rehearsing of that Berry kind of instance with Tristan Bailey is that so all the different different pieces of evidence that you have that point to that thought process is that even in usual amongst juveniles that commit violent Acts it is it's very unusual and again it's not it's not that uncommon for juveniles to talk about something violent occasionally or get in a fight occasionally but to talk about death and dying um in in almost a preoccupied way um it's it's extremely extremely unusual and and that that violent not punching somebody in the face stabbing somebody he also made the uh comments to his best friend um Trey I'm sure that I'll talk about next in that same vein and before we move on to Trey um when you were originally talking about how some of the contexts of these comments were in sort of a shared interest of watching horror movies with zofi his girlfriend um did she explain though a difference between what she was interested in and what Mr Fuji was interested in that respect yes thank you for reminding me of that yeah so so that was an interesting thing too so zafi Bowman made it clear I like Gore and horror but it was it was fictional it wasn't real it was a movie it was pretend right but um she said that she commented about Mr Food she actually pulling up videos off the internet that were real life gore videos so they're out there so real life gore videos of of she said somebody getting his head chopped off or somebody getting shot and that was a distinction she made she said yeah I like Gore but it's fictional and fake whereas he seemed to look for the real life um not TV stuff and he enjoyed looking in that um [Music] Sophie had also witnessed Mr fucci outside of herself commit a violent act or be in a fight I believe as well close to time she she talked about seeing him violent when he beat up another kid at a um at a food truck one Friday night basically stole his vape pen Mr Food she told stole the kids vape pen and the child wanted it back and Mr fucci beat up the child and when he described the type of people he wanted to kill do you recall what Sophie um indicated the type of people whether there were people he liked or didn't like well he he said he said he wanted to kill people he liked and she specifically referenced in that case that he he kind of pulled that from a horror movie he related to that line in the horror movie of killing somebody you liked she also indicated that he he typically talked about killing killing other other guys less so about girls more about guys and then what information if any did his closest Best Friend Trey Absher have consistent or inconsistent with Sophie I mean it's more the same thing so I think one of the differences um In Trey Hampshire in terms of what Mr Fuji verbalized to him is the statement it would be satisfying to split somebody's throat and the statement it would be satisfying to watch the blood drain out now really unusual again unusual for anybody to make those remarks is that that satisfying right what was interesting is Trey absur had a response that I thought represented what what is within the within the realm of normal a normal response to these remarks by Mr fucci so I think it would be satisfying to Slit somebody's throat I think it would be satisfying to watch the blood drain out Trey absher's remark was it was weird and not normal and he even said that I can't imagine stabbing somebody like that especially repeatedly okay so it's interesting to think about that's a normal response most of us can't imagine doing this harm to another person especially in such violent and close-up way um and that was Trey's experience of those remarks but uh Mr fucci didn't have it seemed to have any compunction to making those remarks and understand you know the effect it had on even his friend yeah Dr Pritchard I'm kind of moving into the information you gathered about Mr fucci's General background his family Home and Community what of significance did you note was present and not present about Mr Fuji's background that ultimately adds to some of the opinions you give in this case right so um this was a little bit of a mixed bag too depending on who you asked so I'll I'll go with zofi Bowman and uh Trey Absher first Piers so zafi Bowman in particular talked about um Mr Fuji telling her that things were really difficult at home that he did not feel very uh very loved or appreciated by his parents um he felt like he was the least important and least liked out of all the family um zafi Bowman also said that Mr fucci described that his biological father Jason fucci was sometimes physically abusive she indicated she chronicled four specific incidents where Mr fucci told her that Dad choked him one time so slapped him one time and punched him two times so four separate incidents of of what she described as Mr fucci saying Jason Fuji was physically abusive towards him um she also described that mother was not a very good mother figure um she went so far as to say that Mr fucci described what she believed was emotional abuse in the home from mother um she related that she had urged Mr fucci to report it she was concerned enough to say you need to report this this is emotional abuse as time went on she dropped that idea because Mr Fuji was was didn't seem very responsive to her concern about emotional abuse in the home so those were the suggestions from peers that some things were going on at home that were you know less than healthy now the uh the P I'm sorry the siblings of Mr fucci and that would be Dylan Hicks and that would be Preston Fuji did not characterize that there was any abuse in the home okay um in fact Dylan Hicks described Jason fucci as a fantastic father as a very good father figure who was basically always there for him um characterize a different kind of discipline than uh zophy Bowman indicated Mr fucci told her and the discipline was essentially he got spanked on the butt by Jason fucci if he did something wrong um also that that discipline in the home involved go to your room not being able to have contact with your peers or taking away your cell phone so obviously a very different characterization from Sophie Bowman's suggested them suggesting that Mr fucci said that Jason would in particular was physically abusive and mom was emotionally abusive grandmother Deborah spywag that's maternal grandmother of Mr fucci she's been in the home a lot she used to live there during the week had a had another home and that's where she'd go during the weekend but spent a great deal of time with Aidan fucci and the family she didn't characterize that there were any problems in the home at all she essentially said that everybody got along well that Jason fucci was a fantastic father that Michael akel stepdad was a fantastic father that Crystal Smith Deborah spywag's own daughter was a wonderful mother she she said that since the split of Mr fucci's biological parents so blended family two different households that neither parent had ever missed one of their prescribed weekends that they had custody of Aiden and his siblings so she described it was it was very positive that everybody worked hard that it was very conscientious parenting that the children had all they needed and wanted she described them as spoiled kids in fact she described herself as very close to Hayden fucci so again a little bit of a mixed bag most of the people in the home other than Aidan fucci were describing what I would say is is fairly normal existence in that home whereas what came from zafi Bowman which is what came from Aiden fucci was there were some incidents of perhaps physical abuse in the home and what a zolfi Bowman perceived in the description from Aiden fucci to be emotional abuse from mother and again comparing this individual to similar peers and in in the criminal justice system juveniles that you've looked at um how did his background sort of compare to other backgrounds that you that you witness and see that contribute to behaviors and things I mean I would say relatively speaking he had a very good background of course in the criminal realm we see a lot of poverty often we see a lot of abuse we see a lot of drug addiction there was also common commentary that Mr fucci's parents didn't use alcohol or drugs so I would say he had a very good upbringing relatively speaking we didn't see any of that clear dysfunction that you often see in in criminal cases we didn't see poverty we saw a picture of the house earlier at least I would say middle class family middle class household a lot of people interested grandmother biological father stepmom biological mom stepdad siblings so a lot of people interested in in Mr fuccino's sibling and his family's lives which is also so sometimes not seen in in the criminal context so I would say relatively speaking it was it was pretty unremarkable pretty pretty normal you know existence for him and moving on to one of the other larger categories of factors that you considered [Music] talk about what you learned through the records and how that relates to the effect of any immaturity and petuosity failure to appreciate risks and consequences and obviously the importance of this is how all that relates to his participation in the offense right participation in the offense so I've talked about immaturity you know the important thing I think is he's 14 and a half so he's immature relative to an older population okay so all 14 year olds are relative to young adults or older adolescents but relative to his peers um no description of him being immature immaturity related to the crime it's so unusual the behavior is so unusual in this case you know for a 14 and a half year old that it's hard it's hard to know if if immaturity played any role whatsoever I can't really offer an opinion on this um beyond what I've already said what about impetuosity impetuosity I would pull in I would pull in what I would describe as fantasies the pre-existing experience of violent fantasies in Mr fucci's head that he verbalized two peers that were very descriptive that were very similar to what happened to Tristan Bailey I would say that suggests to me some rehearsal perhaps some premeditation and and when I say perhaps some pre-men meditation when he says expect me to kill somebody this month um and he's already kind of outlined how he would do it it seems like he had some rehearsal of that in his head before it occurred and and so so that was important okay it suggests it it suggests the opposite of impetuosity so if you're planning out planning it and thinking about it fairly extensively before it occurs it's not impetuous that's more planned okay he even made that comment as offie Bowman if he doesn't it's going to be planned okay so that's one aspect of it the other aspect of it I would say in a really important one is the actual crime okay so these terms impetuosity okay what does that really mean well impetuosity impulsivity lack of forethought where you just kind of do something and you don't think about it and you don't think about the consequences it's essentially what it means in this in this context so the crime and I I would like to illustrate my point with a with a hypothetical if I may yes okay there's no question being posed I can pose a question again um the court has heard the facts and I know you'll weave them into your answer about the nature of this crime right um if you were to compare the nature of the crime itself that Aidan Fuji committed to the larger group of his peers and juveniles that commit violence um why is it that you call this particular act not impetuous and what is an example of one that would be okay so um in terms of what what is an example of one that would be that I've seen in my own experience sorry in objection again your honor so now he's describing the nature of a crime he's here qualified as an expert in Psychology not in crime scene or or even in detailing the nature of a crime some objecting to this line of questions all right she's going to repeat her objection and I apologize defense is objecting to the line of questioning Dr Pritchett has been qualified before the court as a psychologist not a crime scene expert or in the nature of homicides to to this question and this line of questions defense counsel is objecting Turner the issue of impetuosity is one of the most important um factors within the factors it's one that Dr Bloomfield is going to testify about as well and the doctor is clearly clearly qualified and has a lot of experience in seeing juvenile crimes and the varying types of those crimes so he's simply trying to describe why he believes this one is not an impetuous act and an example of what an impetuous act would be is describing impetuousness within juveniles or within criminals and the differences between categorizing something as non-impetuous and impetuous right the objection is overruled Doctor you remember the question yes you may answer it thank you so the example of of to illustrate of what I would consider impetuous impetuous crime for example a youth goes into a convenience store with a gun with an intent to rob the clerk the clerk reaches under the counter and the youth fires the gun and hits the clerk and runs out of the store okay so impetuous impetuous meaning there's no indication that youth had plans to shoot the clerk okay there's indication that it was kind of an immediate reaction maybe believed he might be shot so he pulled the gun so I would say that would be a good example of likely impetuosity or impulsivity now to change a few of the Dynamics in that hypothetical okay that same youth goes into the to the convenience store with a gun to rob the clerk the clerk gives money to the youth with the gun and is not our there's no firearm under the thing so he gets the money and the youth takes the money and then shoots the clerk and then he walks over to the counter and shoots the clerk 20 more times while the clerk is lying on the on the ground so you see in those two different examples impetuosity in the first one impulsive we don't know intent to really do anything when he entered the store versus the second example where there seems to be clear intent so clear thought and plan to shoot the clerk whether he got the money or not to kill the clerk don't shoot him once you go over and you shoot him 20 times so it seems far less impetuous and impulsive than the first example and I would say that's a good uh direct comparison to the Eden Fuji case okay so and why in this overall realm of milligram considerations opinion psychology everything that came out of those cases why is that factor so important it's so important because that's why these juvenile sentencing laws came into effect because youth are typically impetuous or can be impetuous relative to adults there's no question juveniles are different than adults and we have to consider that so they can be impetuous they can do something without giving it much thought that can affect their life forever in the lives of others forever we have to consider so that's what we have to kind of analyze it to see does it look impetuous in this case or does it not look impetuous okay so that's why it's relevant and that's why it's important to look at the individual all these factors we've gone through and the act itself right yes you always have to look at the individual every forensic case you're looking at an individual you're not you're not evaluating a group I was asked to evaluate Aidan fucci not a group but that being said when you evaluate an individual in a forensic context you're making comparisons to the group that he comes from that's the comparison sample so so as I said so these things aren't in a vacuum how do I know that suspensions um matter okay I know they matter because it's unusual for his his peer group so I can say Mr Fuji as an individual is unusual in the sense that he gets suspended whereas 95 of his peers do not and and that's kind of how we go about it so I'm I want to compare him in all the things I'm talking about the context and the and the comparative sample is his peer group juveniles under that same factor again I believe there was one other consideration we've talked about into this impetuous analyzation fantasies the nature of the crime you also mentioned your report cover-up how does that play apart yeah so so cover-up um I didn't really talk about how it was a protracted crime it was a long crime right um relatively speaking so in the example I gave go and shoot leave takes a second or two maybe versus go in uh Rob shoot one shoot 20 more times it takes a long a lot longer relative to the first example so in this in this crime of Mr Fuji his uh you know inflicting 114 wounds it takes a long time it doesn't speak to impetuosity to take that long there's thought going on in his head as this is playing out how long exactly did it did it play out for we don't know let's say a couple minutes get your honor speculation for for 114 stab wounds versus one or two seconds in the impetuous example I gave had Mr Fuji stab Tristan Bailey once or twice impetuous impulsive probably 114 I think you really would have a problem making that argument legitimately even if you didn't have that premeditated fantasy information the crime itself speaks to that right exactly even if you didn't have that premeditation although I would say clearly he did clearly it's there it's in his head beforehand so so then the the final thing would be the cover-up okay so that this really plays to appreciation of risks and consequences all right so cover up when somebody tries to cover up a crime the implication is they understand the risks and potential consequences of that crime and their effort is to not get caught because they recognize it's wrong okay it all it all plays into that so in Mr fucci's Case the cover-up would be getting rid of the murder weapon probably not too long after the crime occurred we don't know how long but um it was in the it was in the retention Pond right near her body so he got rid of the murder weapon okay so murder weapon immediately get rid of it um because he recognizes that he doesn't want to have that or else he'd be caught and implicated and he doesn't want to be implicated same for all other acts aspects of cover-up hiding the shoes behind the bureau hiding the T-shirt under the bureau lying to people so lying to zafi Bowman and and Trey about what happened Tristan before the body was discovered lying to his parents when they were talking to him in the interview room lying to authorities about what occurred so why do we lie we lie because we don't want to get caught because we know we've done something wrong so it's appreciation of of potential consequences that you don't want for yourself and that's what generates the behavior so so seems to be clear indication that he's appreciating that related to to his case with that cover-up Behavior okay and that blended into um factor I which was the any effect of his characteristics of Youth on his judgment so you sort of outlined that he was able to think through and and cover up evidence at least in in his manners all right yeah it's it's um yeah the effect of his youth on his judgment so the judgment to kill Tristan Bailey is that related to his youth I don't know how anybody could say it is or it isn't I don't know that's hard to identify but he was obviously demonstrating judgment throughout that judgment in terms of you know the stab was a number of stabilities right um the cover-up that's judgment s so um clearly demonstrating judgment but how how how much that judgment related to the decision to kill Tristan Bailey is related to his youth again it's a really unusual act this this murder is really unusual I don't know how you could say it's related to his youth or not and when you you give that opinion do you have some again statistics of the group The juvenile group to sort of compare him to on violent acts well yeah just well and violent acts yes so just generally violent acts committed by juveniles so the entire group of juveniles who commit um criminal acts of violent Acts or about seven percent of those criminal acts so so it's a small it's a small person I'm sorry that's that's incorrect so of all the violent acts seven percent are murderers okay so that's so it's unusual so Murder By juveniles all the violent acts only seven percent are murdered so it's unusual now that's the to again now he's talking statistics and he's being called as a psychologist well also stay in the objection unless you have something to cite I provided it to I think both councils Dr Patrick you did you provided uh did you have a copy of your honor but it's from the criminals from the U.S federal organization and it's not APA or the association of psychiatrists and psychologists let me make the link vacation's overruled so yes it's it's unusual okay and again why it's relevant to your work in this case is what what are you looking at and making recommendations and opinions to this court about this defendant are you looking at all juveniles are you looking at Aidan Fuji I'm looking at Aiden Fuji but I'm comparing them again to to all juveniles that's that's the reference sample and we have to see is Aiden fucci's or anything about him that's different as an individual based on what we know about other juveniles and what's normative or normal behavior with those juveniles and all of that is again comes out of as you're aware the Miller and Graham decisions and why courts and especially in Florida court has discretion here so the court is to look at the individual and you're here to provide insight and compare him to other similarly situated juveniles is that fair that's correct that's fair there's two very brief factors a brief comment you probably have on those that the courts to consider the extent it's f and g the extent of his participation in the offense and any pressure on him by outside peers in this case so did you see any evidence of anyone else's involvement or influence on aidenfucci in this case nobody else's involvement appears that he acted alone and it did not appear that anybody influenced him either peers or family one of the last um sections you discuss in your report is the possibility of rehabilitating the defendant and there's some different information in addition to the rest that you talk about in that section so if you would kind of talk about your opinion on that and then what that opinion is based on right so the possibility of rehabilitating the defendant a lot of times the best information to get on this variable is comes from um after after the crime occurred when they're incarcerated how are they doing how are they adjusting are they demonstrating things clinically that we we would like to see like some compassion and some sorrow and what went wrong and how can I you know do things better and I feel so bad for the family anything like that um or do we see things that are more negative that doesn't really speak to the person trying to get better or maybe even recognizing or acknowledging or taking responsibility for what they've done so in Mr fucci's Case the information comes from Duval County Jail where there's commentary and I got much of this or some of this from the deposition from Sergeant Cox they were in jail Sergeant Cox deposition talked about how Mr fucci had been functioning in the jail one of the things that Sergeant Cox indicated that Mr we would renew the objection regarding the you ask without any conviction that were cleared by the city paperwork the objection is overruled can I repeat that for them you may defense renews the objection for the post arrest acts bad acts without a conviction that he was cleared in the same people or at least is overruled go ahead doctor right so um the the General indication from Sergeant Cox was that since Mr fucci has been in the jail he has been given given opportunity to be in the general population at the jail and I guess I should say that at the jail he's housed with other juveniles who are direct filed so these are other juveniles who have serious charges they're not with adults so it's another juvenile population but is in the adult jail had opportunity in the general population but according to Sergeant Cox has never it's never worked out for Mr fucci because of his own behavior see the benefit of being in general population is you get to come out of your cell eight hours per day and socialize and you know play games and watch TV whereas other places that they are housed if their behavior is not good they don't get those level privileges so sergeant can't described that Mr fucci has not been able to make it in the general population very well because he always gets sent back to administrative confinement or disciplinary confinement or seclusion because of something he has done he mentions some of the things that Mr fucci had been doing in the Duval County Jail that resulted in him not being able to stay in the general population and essentially one of the main things was he was extorting commissary so commissary that he gets all the all the inmates get you know snacks and things he was extorting the commissary from smaller juveniles at the at the jail when asked about how this extortion was taking place essentially Sergeant Cox was characterizing that Mr fucci would make threats threats like if you don't give me your commissary I'm going to uh ask them to put you in my cell so it was kind of an implied threat there sometimes was explicit it has threatening to harm or kill the other inmate if he did not give the commissary to Mr fucci it happened to at least two um two additional inmates there early on and then it sounded like it happened to two additional ones with different initials later on where he was extorting the commissary there were a couple of complaints by other inmates that Mr fucci was was threatening him I'm going to kill you I'm going to kill your people was threatening to stab them there was one indication by Sergeant Cox he provided a um if I may refer to my report real real quick and find the actual quote I think 17. paragraph two maybe one or two so so one of the uh specific quotes was attributed to Mr fucci toward another juvenile when I go to general population or when I get a chance I'm going to stab you and I can't wait I'm going to look you straight in the eye right and so these really explicit again unusual comments so uh doing this extortion doing these threats um manipulating kind of bullying to get things he wanted and even referencing uh even referencing his his case in the process of threatening or trying to extort so the idea being that Mr fucci seemed to be using the incident and that is the murder and the characteristics of that order to exploit and to get what he wants in the jail environment okay and and in the absence of there's it's really callous to make those statements most of us see that it's callous to make those statements that um you know I'm going to stab you like he did took Tristan Bailey um so it's uh there's concern for me clinically that he is not demonstrating any kind of compassion any kind of understanding and maybe he can't understand that what he's caused the the the terrible terrible uh situation he has caused for so many people Tristan Bailey's family the community his own family so really a a real void in terms of demonstrating some conscience some some understanding that this was terrible in expressing any kind of Sorrow for it and closer in time to the to the actual murder you had a little a few more pieces of evidence of insight to him you had um the Snapchat videos and then the interaction with his parents did you see anything in that evidence that would relate to his um ability to be rehabilitated and just his General reaction to their crime yeah that applies again it's just the unusual incredible callousness about his behavior in the back of the police car okay that's that's really really unusual and and you know it it does not suggest clinically that this this child Mr fucci has the same kind of makeup that most of us do and moral compass that most of us do okay so um it's exceptionally callous at that point he was the only person on the planet that knew where Tristan Bailey was and her status as deceased and he's laughing and joking and peace sign and has anybody seen Tristan uh Tristan lately so really really callous and concerning he didn't seem to he actually seemed to be having a good time with Trey in the back of the police car didn't seem to be that nervous with his parents either way he's speaking to them so he's got this emotional makeup that for me would be clinically very concerning and for me would suggest that he doesn't have I would say at this point I don't see him as a good candidate for prognosis he's not demonstrating what I would like to see clinically to say yeah we have some hope for this guy getting better he's not demonstrating that so I would say that at this point his prognosis is poor for rehabilitation and Dr overall these postgram Miller factors the 10 that we have sort of covered today or primarily the nine that I've gone over with you um it the goal of those is to sort of analyze the the individual the crime give the court some guidance as to how to sentence this particular juvenile are they unique in stature or are we just talking about a general impetuous juvenile any final thoughts additional thoughts and ultimately your opinion on that in this case I I would just say that the overall thought for me is that he's a really unique person I would say in a bad way he's he's demonstrating some things that I think are extremely clinically concerning that we usually do not see in youth um that often we don't see in youth murders so I would say that you know again his ability to kind of grow out of this maybe maybe but he's also got some personality things that are really concerning thank your honor no more questions

Channel: COURT TV

Views: 173,633

Keywords: court tv, court tv live, court tv live stream today, court tv trials, live court tv full trials, aiden fucci court sentencing, aiden fucci court tv, aiden fucci court today, aiden fucci court appearance, aiden fucci court trial, aiden fucci court case, aiden fucci live court, aiden fucci psychology, aiden fucci, tristyn bailey trial, tristyn bailey court case, tristyn bailey true crime, tristyn bailey killer sentence, tristyn bailey killer, tristyn bailey killer update

Id: h338T2Fr7rs

Length: 74min 34sec (4474 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 22 2023