Expert weighs in on suspected shooter's mental state following phone call to ABC30
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A self-admitted killer, justifying the murders of four people. In a 40 minute conversation we had with Kori Muhammad on the phone he expressed little to no remorse-- instead, using the conversation as a platform for racially motivated hate speech.
Walden University's Doctor Eric Hickey, a criminologist, said, "He's always going to come back to how he can justify his behavior. When you think about the trauma of killing somebody, and it's not an easy thing for someone to do that, so there's usually a lot of justification for it."
Hickey said Muhammad is articulate but paranoid and delusional-- even side stepping when he was asked what his message is to the children and wives of the men he killed by talking about racial injustice.
"Can you imagine what it would be like to accept what you've done? I mean, you asked him a very pointed question about the families. He's not going to go there because he's going to have to think about it and so he justifies it. You just cruise over it because getting into that could cause all sorts of other psychological problems for him."
Dr. Hickey believes mental illness is more than likely a factor in Muhammad's self-admitted killings.
"Given his behavior, an analysis of his behavior and his planning and forethought it would strike me that he was of sound mind when he was doing it even though he was maybe delusional."
And because of that Dr. Hickey does not believe Muhammad will be found incompetent to stand trial.
Dr. Hickey said Muhammad can form opinions and thoughts and participate in his own defense.
"If they find him insane he will go to a state hospital, but they could never let him go. I mean if they let him go he will do it again."
We tried to reach out to family members of all the victims and PG&E sent us a statement in honor of Randalls saying, "We appreciate the work of the Fresno Police and the Fresno County District Attorney, and we are thankful to the community for its support."
