Analysis
by Barbara Kirwin,
Ph.D.
Interrupting the judge at his arraignment, 19-year-old Brandon Wilson proclaimed, "I’m guilty, I did it. I killed him. I killed the little boy." As he spoke, an eerie almost triumphant smile flickered across his face. Brandon Wilson had confessed to the vicious stabbing of 9-year-old Matthew Cecchi in a playground bathroom. That shocking admission was merely a postscript to the 2 1/2 hours of graphic confession that Wilson had already given to police. Without benefit of counsel, Wilson had regaled detectives with horrific details about the murder including a chilling re-enactment of sneaking up behind the boy and slitting his throat. Seasoned detectives were astonished by his revelations, remarking that he differed from ordinary criminals in his utter enthusiasm for disclosing "anything and everything". Wilson’s confession seemed a paragon of police interrogation techniques and a veritable roadmap for the prosecution’s case. But to some of the psychiatrists and psychologists who examined him, it was instead a primer of psychosis, a page ripped directly from the DSM-IV (the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association) under 295.70 Schizoaffective Disorder. Nevertheless, Wilson’s Psychotic Delusion Confession, although more clinical than criminal, was the most persuasive argument for his sanity and the death penalty.
Wilson’s videotaped confession is a case study in psychotic symptoms. Throughout his rambling monologue, Wilson often laughs inappropriately, evades eye contact, stares off into space, and manifests odd body language and mannerisms like rocking and peculiar hand gestures. He is extremely suggestible to leading questions by the interrogator, latching on to descriptions like "hunting" and "rush" which were inconsistent with the general tone of his spontaneous expressions. Wilson makes bizarrely and gratuitously self-condemning statements answering that he would kill as many as he could - "Anyone and Everyone." An evil, cunning thrill killer does not respond in such a recklessly incriminating fashion.
According to his former teachers, Brandon Wilson had been a sweet and loving little boy much like his innocent victim. After his parents’ bitter divorce when he was 13, he became so hostile and withdrawn that his mother took him to a psychiatrist. This doctor described him as the angriest young man he had ever seen. Wilson admitted to having impulses to kill people, especially his mother, starting at about this time. Despite this, Wilson continued to get straight A’s in school, score brilliantly on his SAT’s and gain admission to a first rate college. After graduation from high school, a restless Wilson withdrew his savings and roamed aimlessly west through Washington, Oregon and Colorado. This is a typical schizophrenic scenario: the onset of symptoms in adolescence, the increasing agitation and withdrawal from people and ultimately the downward drift through the cracks of society. The fact that Brandon Wilson was highly intelligent does not preclude mental illness.
The primary diagnostic feature of Wilson’s psychosis is his well-articulated delusional system. He believes that he was "created" to contribute to the destruction of the world. Religious delusions or preoccupations are very prevalent among paranoid psychotics who commit violent crimes. The fact that Wilson believes he is a special emissary of God is an example of his paranoid religiosity and grandiosity.
During the murder re-enactment, Wilson looked like the very epitome of what previous generations called a "homicidal maniac". The officer said that he had to pull Wilson off his interrogator: he was losing control — right in police custody and under the watchful eye of the video camera! Wilson’s behavior during this confession typifies the profile of the psychotic killer. Delusions, hallucinations and other signs of irrationality preceded the murder. Wilson exhibited no remorse and freely confessed to the killing in gory detail. Why shouldn’t he? In his mind, he was a man who had succeeded in a God-given mission and now he was prepared to die for his beliefs. Wilson’s motive, which was so compelling and real to him, seemed to jurors like a grotesque attempt at getting away with murder. His crime was superfluously brutal (stabbing the boy five times after slitting his throat — watching the blood spurt out with each heart beat). It was more the result of impulse than planning. He acted in full view of witnesses without any accomplices and with no motive of revenge or personal gain.
The jurors deliberated for several days before adjudicating Brandon Wilson sane and sentencing him to death for the 1998 murder of Matthew Cecchi. They firmly believed that Wilson was faking insanity and got the verdict he deserved. From my analysis of his confession, Brandon Wilson was an acutely disturbed psychotic who was controlled by his religious delusions. The flat, matter of fact way that Wilson explained his motivation and his chilling pantomime of the murderous act itself, was more the work of a deluded psychotic trying to fake sanity. Ironically, Wilson got what in a final testimony to his deluded state, he wanted, "Execute me". While on death row Brandon Wilson has denied all treatment and medication and refuses to believe that he is mentally ill. In his unbalanced mind, Wilson will die a hero and a martyr.