Gillis trial recessed until Wednesday

• By AMY WOLD
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jul 29, 2008 - UPDATED: 7:20 p.m.

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The first-degree murder trial of convicted killer Sean Vincent Gillis has recessed until Wednesday, but not before a University of Pennsylvania neuropsychologist completed his testimony.

The neuropsychologist, Ruben Gur, testified today that a brain scan of Gillis is similar to brain scans from people with schizophrenia.

In response to a prosecutor’s question, Gur agreed that just because a person might have schizophrenia, it doesn’t automatically mean they will become a killer.

Gur also testified that Gillis had the mental capacity to plan.

“Parts of the frontal lobe are damaged, but not the entire frontal lobe,” Gur testified. “So, he should be able to plan.”

Earlier today, Gur testified his analysis of the MRI test on Gillis’s brain showed a larger than normal brain. However, larger than normal fluid areas indicate brain damage and several areas of his brain — including the part that helps evaluate threats to a person — are smaller than normal.

The testimony came during the penalty phase of the first-degree murder trial for Gillis, who has already been convicted of the 2004 killing of 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston.

The penalty phase of the trial is held in capital murder cases to help the jury decide whether to recommend a sentence of life in prison or death by lethal injection.

The same jurors last week convicted Gillis in the killing of Johnston, whose naked and mutilated body was found Feb 27, 2004 in a drainage canal near Ben Hur Road south of LSU.

Gillis, 46, has confessed to killing eight women, including Johnston. He has been booked in the murders of seven of those women, and the eighth is still under investigation.

Gillis was sentenced to life in prison last year after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the death of 36-year-old Joyce Williams. Gillis admitted killing her in a sugar cane field in West Baton Rouge Parish in 1999.

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Neuropsychologist testifies in Gillis trial
4:37 p.m.

A brain scan from Sean Vincent Gillis is similar to brain scans from people with schizophrenia, according to Ruben Gur, a neuropsychologist from the University of Pennsylvania.