Murder Defendant Was Seeing Therapist : Trial: Robert Chan’s mother tells of her son’s bizarre behavior, fear of strangers in weeks preceding the slaying of honor student Stuart Tay. Psychotherapist says youth’s problems were ‘severe.’

Robert Chan refused to bathe, slept with the lights on and became convinced strangers were out to hurt him in the weeks before he allegedly plotted the 1992 New Year’s Eve slaying of honors student Stuart A. Tay, the defendant’s mother testified Tuesday.

Shu Chan said she and her husband were so worried about their 18-year-old son that they forced him to see a psychotherapist in November, 1992. The couple met with the counselor the day before the killing to discuss their teen-ager’s problems, she said.

“He felt no more hope for his life,” the former schoolteacher told an Orange County Superior Court jury. “I was so scared and worried about my son.”

Shu Chan appeared to swoon on the witness stand and fought back tears as she testified that her son had been scheduled to return to the psychotherapist on Jan. 7, 1993--one week after the slaying.

“But by then . . .” she said, unable to finish her sentence.

“It was too late?” prompted defense attorney Marshall M. Schulman.

“Yes,” Shu Chan whispered.

Fullerton psychotherapist Keith Golay followed Shu Chan on the witness stand and told jurors that after four sessions with Robert Chan, he realized a psychiatrist would be better equipped than he to address the Fullerton teen-ager’s problems, which he said included a desire to give up living. But Chan was later arrested for Tay’s slaying and no referral was ever made.

Golay conceded Tuesday that he underestimated Robert Chan’s fragile mental state.

“His problems were severe, rather than moderate, as I earlier believed,” Golay said.

Chan, now 19, faces life in prison if convicted of masterminding the slaying of Tay, 17, of Orange, who was an honors student at Foothill High School in Santa Ana. The prosecution contends that Chan plotted the killing because he feared Tay was going to double-cross him in a planned computer heist.

But the defense contends that Chan is a paranoid schizophrenic who turned on Tay because he believed his own life was in danger.

Three other youths charged in the case--Abraham Acosta, 17, of Buena Park, and Mun Bong Kang, 19, and Kirn Young Kim, 18, both of Fullerton--will go on trial after Chan’s case concludes.

The key prosecution witness was a fifth youth, Charles Choe, 18, of Fullerton, who pleaded guilty to his role in the killing and testified against Chan.

Chan and the four youths attended Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton.

Authorities allege that Robert Chan and the others beat Tay, forced rubbing alcohol down his throat and then taped his mouth and nose shut. He was then buried in Acosta’s back yard.

During his first three years in high school, Robert Chan had done well in school, was a sharp dresser and a contender for class valedictorian.

That changed in early 1992, his mother said. His grades began slipping, he refused to shower or brush his teeth, wore filthy clothing and became distant and depressed.

“At that time, I did not think it was a serious problem; I thought depression was a common thing for teen-agers,” she said. She sought professional help when his symptoms persisted--and worsened.

Shortly before the slaying, mother and son were walking near a homeless man when the teen-ager became convinced the man might hurt them, his mother testified. Another time, he became terrified of a woman who was walking near the family’s home and ran indoors, she said.

Golay told jurors that Chan’s refusal to take care of himself indicated a “splitting in his personality,” as did Chan’s admission that he had begun to feel like a “spectator” in his own life and experienced severe feelings of hopelessness and despair about life.

“You go to school, you work and then you die,” Golay recalled Chan saying.

Chan was also consumed with random thoughts on such subjects as death, evil, Smurfs characters and former President Theodore Roosevelt, Golay said.