Expert: Massip Suffered Classic Maternal Psychosis

Bolstering the defense’s claim of insanity, an internationally renowned psychiatrist told a jury on Wednesday that Sheryl Lynn Massip suffered from a textbook case of maternal psychosis when she ran over her 6-week-old son.

The Anaheim woman was living a “walking nightmare” at the time of the killing in April, 1987, psychiatrist James Alexander Hamilton of San Francisco said in testimony at Massip’s murder trial in Superior Court in Santa Ana.

“She acted as one might expect a zombie to react, a sleepwalker . . . really unaware of what has gone on,” said Hamilton, who examined Massip in August. “A person in this state is not conscious.”

Several local medical experts who examined Massip had split on their conclusions about her sanity at the time she ran over the infant with the family car and dumped the mangled body in a trash can.

Little-Known Illness

The testimony from Hamilton, a retired Stanford University faculty member who is recognized as an international leader in the study of psychotic disorders in new mothers, could add a significant weapon to the arsenal of defense attorney Milton C. Grimes, who is trying to prove to a jury that Massip suffered from a little-known illness called postpartum psychosis.

Researchers say the disease, which may be hormonally rooted, hits about three in every 1,000 new mothers, causing severe anxiety, personality changes and even violence.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Borris asserts that Massip was not insane at the time of the killing, but rather that she became frustrated with her constantly crying baby and failing marriage, killed the baby and then tried to cover it up with an elaborate kidnaping story.

But at a break in Hamilton’s testimony, prosecutor Borris went so far as to say he was impressed with the honesty and breadth of Alexander’s remarks. Borris will cross-examine the 81-year-old psychiatrist on Monday.

Hamilton testified under questioning by Grimes that Massip represents an extreme, yet classic, case of a young mother who snaps mentally after showing no previous signs of psychotic behavior.

Before the birth of her son, Michael, in March of 1987, Hamilton said, Massip appeared to those around her as “gentle, agreeable, easy to work with, reliable, not prone to temper tantrums.” After the child’s birth, Hamilton said, Massip was prone to extreme mood swings and, in the end, violent outbursts against her son.

On the day of the killing, Massip first tried to throw her first and only son into oncoming traffic, then hit him over the head with a blunt instrument and finally ran over him with the family car.

Massip testified earlier this week that she was driven by voices telling her to “put (the boy) out of his misery.” In his testimony Wednesday, Hamilton said that he believed this operated as a prime motive--what he called “a theme”--for the killing.

Hamilton pointed to Massip’s dumping of the body near the top of an open trash can, where it was soon discovered, as evidence that she was not thinking rationally at the time of the killing.

“This is not the way people commit crimes,” he said. “This is the way people act who are under the influence of a (psychological) phenomenon . . . grossly departed from reality.”

Grimes said Hamilton was not paid for his testimony in court. Expert witnesses generally receive a fee for court appearances.