Dela Rosa Insane, Psychologist Says

Update

The defense rested its case on Tuesday. Closing arguments and jury deliberations are expected to begin Wednesday afternoon.

Original Post

Carmela dela Rosa was stuck in a delusion when she threw her 2-year-old granddaughter over a Tysons Corner Center walkway last November, a psychologist said in court Tuesday during the grandmother's murder trial.

Michael Hendricks, who evaluated dela Rosa while she was in prison, took the stand around 2 p.m. Tuesday, saying he believed the 51-year-old was insane in the moment she lifted Angelyn Ogdoc over a pedestrian bridge. She did not understand the consequences of her actions, he said, nor did she understand the difference between right and wrong. 

"She was so stuck in this very constricted thinking it never occurred to her the issue of right versus wrong," Hendricks said.

Last Monday, dela Rosa pleaded not guilty to Ogdoc's murder by reason of insanity; Hendricks was the defense team's final witness in its days-long attempt to prove she could not distinguish between right and wrong at the time the crime occurred.

Hendricks said after reviewing dela Rosa's medical records, interviewing her in prison and speaking with her previous health care providers, family and friends, he determined she had recurrent severe major depressive disorder with psychotic features.

Psychosis warps a person's interaction with the world, Hendricks said, and can occur in people who are experiencing a severe depressive episode. He also said someone could be experiencing a form of psychosis, such as delusions, and "you would’t be able to tell by looking at them."

Because of this, Hendricks said dela Rosa should have been advised to stay on Prozac all the time, instead of taking it sporadically as dela Rosa did. He found no evidence of a recommendation to take the common antidepressant constantly in dela Rosa's medical records, he said.

Prozac is not like Advil, taken for a quick fix to make a headache go away, Hendricks said.

"It has to very slowly build up in your system and it has to be in your system for a long time," Hendricks said. "It can take two to four weeks to feel any benefit of an antidepressant."

Dela Rosa was stuck in a delusion that November night at Tysons Corner Center, when she became hyper-focused on her anger toward her son-in-law James Ogdoc, Hendricks said.

The video surveillance tape played in court last week shows dela Rosa hanging over the railing as her family rushed to Angelyn below, giving no reaction to what had just occurred.

She was not responding to the reality of what happened at that point, Hendricks said. She was stuck in that delusion.

“If she was able to step out of the delusion she could immediately tell the difference between right and wrong," Hendricks said.

It wasn't until she snapped out of the delusion that she was able to have any sort of reaction to what had happened, Hendricks said. 

When Hendricks asked dela Rosa in interviews if she had intended to hurt Angelyn, she said she had not.

The prosecution will cross-examine Hendricks this afternoon. It will call its own expert Wednesday morning. Closing arguments from both sides will follow, and the jury could begin deliberating as early as Wednesday afternoon.

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