Doctors Call D.C. Boxer's Killer Sane

By Bill Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday , April 29, 2000 ; A01

Two months after he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in a deadly shooting rampage at Washington Hospital Center, Tomar Cooper Locker has been declared sane and might be on the verge of being a free man.

Doctors at St. Elizabeths Hospital recently concluded that Locker shows no sign of major psychiatric problems and requires no treatment. The findings came as no surprise to prosecutors: They argued all along that Locker knew exactly what he was doing on Feb. 5, 1998, when he opened fire in a crowded hospital lobby and killed his archenemy, Reuben Bell, and wounded five bystanders.

Swayed by the testimony of a defense psychiatrist, who said the crime was a horrible split-second reaction to post-traumatic stress disorder, a jury in D.C. Superior Court found Locker not guilty of second-degree murder by reason of insanity. The same panel convicted him that February of a lesser charge of carrying a pistol without a license.

Yesterday, Locker and his lawyers were back in court, saying he is better.

They cited the findings of four doctors at St. Elizabeths, who examined Locker after the verdict and found nothing wrong with him. In light of the doctors' report, Judge Lee Satterfield had little choice but to release Locker from the hospital's custody.

Satterfield then sentenced Locker to serve 20 to 60 months in prison on the gun charge, the maximum under the law. But because Locker has already been in custody for 26 months, he is eligible for immediate parole. Defense attorneys said they hope to persuade the D.C. Parole Board to release him within two weeks.

"It's basically ridiculous," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter R. Zeidenberg, who prosecuted the case. "I've been saying all along he was faking. What could I do?"

Defense attorney Bernard S. Grimm acknowledged that Locker's is "a bizarre case," but he said the doctors found that Locker poses no danger to himself or others and so should be freed. "This is not a case where it's a thug beating the system," Grimm said.

Locker, 25, admitted carrying out the shooting, which was caught on videotape by a hospital security camera. He blamed Bell, a local boxer, for the April 1994 killing of his girlfriend, Keisha Cragg. Locker, who was with his girlfriend, was shot eight times in the attack and spent three months in the hospital, including 45 days in a coma.

Locker, who in 1996 got married and moved to South Carolina, testified that he was haunted by Bell and came to Washington after reading in a newspaper that the boxer was undergoing daily chemotherapy treatment at Washington Hospital Center. He insisted that he only wanted to talk to Bell and that he had the gun that day for protection. Bell, who had numerous brushes with police, was never charged with Cragg's killing.

Defense psychiatrist Susan J. Fiester testified that Locker was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder at the time of the shooting. The prosecution presented testimony from two other doctors, including one from St. Elizabeths, who said they believed that Locker was sane and faking illness. The jury sided with Fiester.

Fiester has testified at numerous criminal trials, including the case of Lorena Bobbitt, who in 1994 was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the notorious attack on her husband, John Wayne Bobbitt. Lorena Bobbitt, who Fiester said also snapped, likewise was released from a psychiatric hospital soon after the jury's verdict.

In Locker's case, the four doctors who recently examined him questioned Fiester's diagnosis. They asked how his symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder could have "spontaneously resolved" themselves after the shootings. They wrote: "Clearly, the emotional and physical distress he sustained as a result of the 1994 shooting point to a more reasonable, albeit unfortunate and unacceptable, motivation for shooting Mr. Bell."

The doctors said psychological testing of Locker showed "evidence of lying, manipulative behavior, lack of empathy, and failure to accept responsibility for his actions." But the section that was of most importance to the court stated that: "Mr. Locker is not presently suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and poses minimal danger to himself or others in the foreseeable future. Therefore he does not require hospitalization."

Grimm said Locker, who was a bus driver, had no criminal record prior to Bell's shooting and wants to resume his life with his wife. Although the parole board could require Locker to serve all 60 months--keeping him locked up for nearly three more years--Grimm said, "We frankly expect him out within a couple of weeks."

Samantha Kappalman, whose husband, Brad, was hit in the head by a bullet from Locker's handgun that ricocheted, said she was stunned by the developments. Her husband has a bullet fragment lodged above his left eye, and she has nightmares about seeing him lying bleeding on the floor of the hospital that day.

"I'm furious about this," she said. "How can they justify this? A man is dead, and there are people whose entire lives have been turned around by this. They should punish him to the fullest extent that they can. He should not be allowed to walk away."

© 2000 The Washington Post Company