Boy, 15, jailed for grandparents’ murder

A 15-YEAR-OLD boy, who claimed the antidepressant Zoloft drove him to kill his grandparents, was jailed for murder yesterday.

Christopher Pittman hung his head as the verdict was read after about six hours of deliberations in Charleston, South Carolina.

He was later sentenced to 30 years in prison for each death, to be served concurrently.

The trial was the first case involving a youngster who says an antidepressant caused him to kill, Pittman’s lawyer said. It came at a time of heightened scrutiny over the use of antidepressants among children.

Defence lawyers had urged the jury to send a message by blaming Zoloft for the killings. They said the negative effects of Zoloft are more pronounced in youngsters, and that the drug affected Pittman so he did not know right from wrong.

“We do not convict children for murder when they have been ambushed by chemicals that destroy their ability to reason,” lawyer Paul Waldner said.

But prosecutors called the Zoloft defence a smokescreen, saying the 12-year-old Pittman knew exactly what he was doing three years ago when he shot his grandparents, set fire to their house and then drove off in their car.

Prosecutor Barney Giese said the real motivation for the crime was the boy’s anger at his grandparents for disciplining him for choking a younger student on a school bus. And he reminded jurors how the boy killed them - shooting his grandfather in the mouth and his grandmother in her head while both lay sleeping.

“I don’t care how old he is. That is as malicious a killing - a murder - as you are ever going to find,” Mr Giese said. He pointed to Pittman’s statement to police in which he said his grandparents “deserved it.”

Zoloft is the most widely prescribed antidepressant in the US, with 32.7 million prescriptions written in 2003. Last October, the US Food and Drug Administration ordered Zoloft and other antidepressants to carry “black box” warnings - the government’s strongest warning short of a ban - about an increased risk of suicidal behaviour in children.