TOWSON, Md. — A teenager accused of shooting his father, mother and two younger brothers will be tried as an adult, a judge ruled Tuesday after a psychiatrist testified the teen was physically and verbally abused by his parents.
Baltimore County Circuit Judge Thomas J. Bollinger Sr. denied a request by attorneys for Nicholas W. Browning to have his case transferred to juvenile court.
The ruling followed about two hours of detailed testimony from a defense psychiatrist that the alleged abuse by the teen's parents, John and Tamara, caused mental illness. Browning's attorneys argued he could be better treated in the juvenile system.
The testimony provided the first public airing of Browning's difficulties with his parents in the well-respected family.
Browning has pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in the slayings at his family's Cockeysville home in February, a week shy of his 16th birthday.
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According to police, Browning walked home after midnight from a friend's house and shot his parents and brothers in the heads as they slept, then returned to the friend's house and pretended nothing had happened. Police have said he confessed to the killings.
Dr. Neil H. Blumberg, a forensic psychiatrist, testified that Browning suffered from a dissociative disorder on the night of the killings that involved disruptions in consciousness, memory and perception. Browning indicated he was in "a trancelike state," Blumberg said.
Bollinger, however, ruled that evidence about Browning's mental condition alone was not sufficient to merit transferring the case to juvenile court.
Prosecutors, who did not call any witnesses during the hearing, submitted reports from two state psychiatrists who found that Browning had no diagnosable mental illnesses.
Attorneys on both sides had no comment afterward; Bollinger has barred them from speaking to the media.
Browning told Blumberg that he didn't remember pulling the trigger of the handgun he used and that the gunshots sounded muffled.
"He felt like he was floating" on the way to the bedrooms where his mother and brothers were sleeping, Blumberg said.
After the killings, he haphazardly tried to make it look like a robbery, knocking over a jewelry box and removing video game consoles, before returning to his friend's house, Blumberg said.
Noting that Browning has an IQ of 125, Blumberg said, "If you're plotting out a crime, someone of his intelligence would be able to do this more effectively."
Blumberg also interviewed relatives and friends of the Browning family, and many said they had witnessed abuse of Nicholas by his parents. He said the family had a history of alcoholism and that John, Tamara and Nicholas all abused alcohol.
When Tamara was called in to Nicholas' school because he was bullying classmates, she slapped him across the face, giving him a black eye, Blumberg said. John would frequently strike Nicholas at the dinner table, and he grabbed his son and threw him against a wall after he was thrown out of a lacrosse game, Blumberg said.
Nicholas' grades began to slip, and he began to think he could do nothing to please his parents, Blumberg said.
"Nick felt like a failure and adopted the attitude, 'Well, there's nothing I can do to please them, so why bother?' " Blumberg said.
Family members did not comment as they left court.
Browning was led into the courtroom in a blue polo shirt and khaki pants, his legs in shackles. He had no visible reaction to Bollinger's ruling and was handcuffed before being taken away.
John Browning was an attorney and a Boy Scout master; Tamara was a homemaker and PTA president; and the Brownings were active members of Epworth United Methodist Church. Nearly 1,300 people attended a funeral service for the family.
Nicholas began drinking at age 14, Blumberg said. He would consume as many as 10 mixed drinks in a night and had at least one alcoholic blackout, Blumberg said.
It took Browning several weeks to fully comprehend what he had done, said Blumberg, whose seven interviews with the teen totaled more than 14 hours.
Initially, "he was totally devoid of emotion," the psychiatrist said.
