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Jerry Chambers has told a psychiatrist that he is not a 33-year-old black man from South Philadelphia.
Instead, Chambers - charged with beating a toddler to death - claimed to be a 16-year-old white girl from Arizona named Darryl during an April 8 psychiatric evaluation.
Robert W. Stanton testified that during that court-ordered evaluation, the man accused of murdering 3-year-old Porchia Bennett in 2003 went to extreme lengths to pretend he is mentally ill.
He called Chambers' behavior a "classic case" of malingering.
"You could just feel it in the room - he was just pushing to convince me," Stanton, medical director of the Philadelphia courts' mental-health clinic, told Common Pleas Court Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes yesterday during a competency hearing.
"When I asked him about Philadelphia, he said, 'What's Philadelphia?' " Stanton testified.
Stanton said Chambers also claimed that his birthday was in 1948 and insisted that he was in jail on a car-theft charge - not a murder case.
Assistant District Attorney Richard Sax has argued that Chambers is faking mental illness to avoid a death-penalty trial.
Stanton testified that he believes Chambers wants to go to Norristown State Hospital rather than stand trial, and "upped the ante" to attempt to convince Stanton that he is incompetent.
"It was clear throughout the interview that he made every effort to appear sicker than he was," Stanton said in his report. "... This represents merely an effort to avoid the criminal-justice system."
Chambers is accused of beating Porchia with a belt and whipping her with an extension cord, then smashing her into a radiator after he caught her watching him have sex with her aunt in the South Philadelphia apartment they shared.
Chambers; the aunt, Candace Geiger, 20; and Porchia's mother, Tiffany Bennett, 29, were scheduled to stand trial together April 11. That was postponed when the issue of Chambers' competency was raised last month.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/11408128.htm
Instead, Chambers - charged with beating a toddler to death - claimed to be a 16-year-old white girl from Arizona named Darryl during an April 8 psychiatric evaluation.
Robert W. Stanton testified that during that court-ordered evaluation, the man accused of murdering 3-year-old Porchia Bennett in 2003 went to extreme lengths to pretend he is mentally ill.
He called Chambers' behavior a "classic case" of malingering.
"You could just feel it in the room - he was just pushing to convince me," Stanton, medical director of the Philadelphia courts' mental-health clinic, told Common Pleas Court Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes yesterday during a competency hearing.
"When I asked him about Philadelphia, he said, 'What's Philadelphia?' " Stanton testified.
Stanton said Chambers also claimed that his birthday was in 1948 and insisted that he was in jail on a car-theft charge - not a murder case.
Assistant District Attorney Richard Sax has argued that Chambers is faking mental illness to avoid a death-penalty trial.
Stanton testified that he believes Chambers wants to go to Norristown State Hospital rather than stand trial, and "upped the ante" to attempt to convince Stanton that he is incompetent.
"It was clear throughout the interview that he made every effort to appear sicker than he was," Stanton said in his report. "... This represents merely an effort to avoid the criminal-justice system."
Chambers is accused of beating Porchia with a belt and whipping her with an extension cord, then smashing her into a radiator after he caught her watching him have sex with her aunt in the South Philadelphia apartment they shared.
Chambers; the aunt, Candace Geiger, 20; and Porchia's mother, Tiffany Bennett, 29, were scheduled to stand trial together April 11. That was postponed when the issue of Chambers' competency was raised last month.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/11408128.htm