Boston Forensic Associates

michelle — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 18:30:25 +0000

In The News

The professional staff of Boston Forensic Associates is often asked by various media outlets as well as educational and professional societies to comment on particular forensic matters. We are also very involved in our community and speak at local events to advocate for better mental health and medical services, especially for those in less fortunate financial conditions.

The new computer tablet based testing system for psychologists

admin — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 21:56:45 +0000

Dr. Mendoza discusses his role in the beta testing phase of Pearson Assessment’s Q-Interactive.
Click Here to Visit Q-Interactive

Dr. Mendoza Interviewed on Violence

michelle — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 17:50:34 +0000

Recent spike in deadly crimes reflects personal, financial problems, experts say. The recent spike in deadly crimes locally, including a series of horrifying family bloodbaths, likely reflects the frustrations of people lashing out amid personal and financial woes, experts say. There have been seven murders in Norfolk County in 2009, the deadliest toll in at least four years. Deadly crime tends to spike in periods of economic distress, and family members are often the most convenient target, experts said. Cuts in services to the mentally ill also may be preventing at-risk individuals from obtaining treatment, said Kevin Borgeson, a Carver resident and criminologist at Salem State College. “Most of the extreme (crimes) have been issues of mental illness,” Borgeson said. “You probably see more people falling through the cracks in bad economic times.” Locally, most of the alleged victims were close to their attackers. Kerby Revelus, 23, of Milton was shot and killed by police in March after stabbing to death his sister Samantha, 17, and decapitating his 5-year-old sister Bianca. Friends said Revelus had taken a turn for the worse after serving a five-month jail sentence for weapons violations.

“It occurs when people become frustrated and don’t know what to do and take out their frustrations on the nearest person,” said Stuart Clayman, a licensed psychologist from Brighton. “People who are violent will also choose as their victims people who are least able to retaliate.” In April, a Quincy mother of three, Fang Chi-Xue, 43, allegedly killed her 9-year-old daughter and 71/2-month-old unborn child. The woman thought her husband had fathered a child with a mistress, investigators said. Early last month, lawyers in the case agreed that Xue is mentally unfit to stand trial. She is committed at Worcester State Hospital. Also in April, a 76-year-old Quincy man was accused of hitting his sleeping 13-year-old granddaughter with a meat cleaver. Man Luc has been sent to Bridgewater State Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. Also in April, there was a domestic murder-suicide at the Motel 6 in Braintree and a homeless man was stabbed to death in Weymouth. Scott T. Steadman is charged with murdering Ronald Pratt, 49, in a tent where he had been living in Weymouth. Clayman, who performs mental health evaluations on people applying for disability benefits, said many of his clients come from households rife with abuse. “People feel more frustrated and angry. Maybe they lost the house or got kicked out of their apartment because they can’t get even low-level menial jobs, and the frustration builds up,” he said. “Some of them use alcohol and drugs to self-medicate themselves for the stresses that build up.”

The most recent deadly incident occurred Aug. 29 in Quincy. Police say Joseph Beatty, 52, strangled his 33-year-old girlfriend, Mary Beaton. Beatty told police the two had argued over an upcoming trip to Las Vegas and over money for Beaton’s rent. Prosecutors said Beatty went to Boston Medical Center the day of the murder because he was feeling suicidal, and told staffers there that he had hurt Beaton. According to his defense attorney, Beatty had been a printer and glass installer before going on disability a year ago because of kidney disease.

“There’s a lot more stress and pressure now,” said Robert Mendoza, a psychologist for Boston Forensic Associates in Dedham. “When they are left out in the open with no means to cope, it’s very difficult for people. It’s not something they’re used to. There are not many options, and unfortunately, they go home with that.”

Dr. Mendoza on Emily Rooney’s Greater Boston Discusses “Clark Rockefeller”

michelle — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 17:42:34 +0000

Dr. Robert Mendoza on Emily Rooney’s Greater Boston discusses recent murder cases

michelle — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 17:35:20 +0000

Dr. Robert Mendoza Interviewed on the Warning Signs of Violence

michelle — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 17:05:13 +0000

Patriot Ledger, The (Quincy, MA)

Warning Signs of Violence

There Were Ominous Indicators in Weymouth Murder Suspect’s Past
Christian Schiavone; The Patriot Ledger

WEYMOUTH- A history’ of aggressive behavior. Worsening symptoms of severe mental illness. Unresponsiveness to treatment or unwillingness to be treated. Taken together, those faciors are cause for heightened worry that someone with a serious mental illness will become violent, experts say. And they’re all pieces of the story prosecutors, family friends and neighbors have painted of Donald Rudolph, the 18-year-old Weymouth man charged with bludgeoning his sister, his mother and her boyfriend in their 10 Upland Road home.

Only a tiny fraction of people who suffer from illnesses such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder ever become violent, said Dr. Robert Mendoza, a forensic psychologist and owner of Boston Forensic Associates in Dedham. But he said Rudolph’s history should have raised concerns long before police discovered the grisly triple murder scene Nov. 10.

“The question really wouldn’t be would he become violent. The question would be when would he become violent again,” Mendoza said. “Clearly, violence was on the menu, given his clinical status as we know it.”

Long before police charged Rudolph with the brutal killings of Paula Rudolph, 50, Caylin Rudolph, 24, and Frederick Medina, 52, he had a history of antisocial behavior and scrapes with the law, according to court records.

Neighbors said they feared him because of his odd and sometimes threatening behavior. Between April and September, he was charged with shooting two people with a BB gun, selling marijuana and trying to break into a home to collect a drug debt, according to court and Quincy police records. In the last instance, he allegedly told police he was schizophrenic and paranoid, and that he carried a hammer in case he ran into the police because they made him nervous.

He pleaded guilty to the charges in all three cases Sept. 14 and was given a two-year suspended sentence and ordered to immediately begin mental health treatment.

On Nov. 10, police were called to his mother’s home on Upland Road- where he was no longer living- and found Medina bludgeoned and stabbed with a Beanie Baby stuffed in his mouth in the living room. The bodies of Caylin and Paula Rudolph were found in the garage. Both had been bludgeoned and Caylin had been stabbed.

Police found a hammer and a bloody knife at the scene.

When Rudolph was arraigned on murder charges Nov. 14, his attorney, John Darrell, said he was experiencing hallucinations and had no memory of the night of the murders. He is being held without bail at Bridgewater State Hospital, where he will undergo a mental health evaluation.

The most glaring aspect of his record is the escalation in violent behavior, said Dr. Nancy Rappaport, a psychologist who teaches at Harvard Medical School. “The biggest thing is that past violence predicts future violence,” she said. “If you add in substance abuse, impulsivity and mental illness, that’s going to increase the concern.”

Rudolph may have had difficulty coping with his mental illness partly because of his age.

“He’s sort of at the age where he may have been ill for a few years,” said Dr. Elizabeth Englander, a professor of psychology at Bridgewater State University. “He hasn’t been ill with this his whole life, and the odds are he’s adjusting to it.”

In most multiple-murder cases, the killers plan their crimes, said James Fox, a Northeastern University professor of criminology who has written several books on mass murderers. But premeditation may be less clear cases that involve mental illness.

“The big (questions are): why did he go there, since he wasn’t living there, and were the weapons brought or found in the home?” Fox said. “Even if it’s more spontaneous, there’s a history, regardless. Multiple murderers tend to be people who have long-term history of failure, frustration and disappointment. They tend to have limited support systems in their lives.”

Christian Schiavone may be reached at cschiavone@ledger.com.

Warning Signs

michelle — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 16:02:18 +0000

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Inside the Mind of a Killer: Dr. Mendoza Interviewed

michelle — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:14:22 +0000

Experts say Kerby Revelus doesn’t easily fit any criminal profile and it’s unlikely there were any warning signs

By NANCY REARDON
THE PATRIOT LEDGER

MILTON – No one will ever know for certain why Kerby Revelus suddenly snapped and turned violent on his own
family, brutally slaying two sisters and injuring a third. Criminology and psychology experts iterviewed this week said the violence of Revelus’ acts doesn’t easily fit any criminal profile. They also said it’s unlikely there were any telling warning signs of the violent eruption that occurred . Rarely do experts see obvious indications that a person is about to snap, said Dr. Robert Mendoza, a psychologist at Boston Forensic Associates in Dedham. “I’ve worked with a number of serial murderers and people who have committed very violent crimes, and if they walked into any traditional medical clinic, the odds of them being identified as having an issue would be very, very small,” Mendoza said. Still, experts did identify several’ risk factors that applied to Revelus, including his gender and age, and they noted his criminal history and the significance of his relations with his victims.

Ninety percent of all murders and 98 percent of all serial murderers are male, according Jack Levin, a criminology professor and co-director of the Brudnick Center for Violence at Northeastem University. Revelus, 23, was in the most violence-prone gender/age group: males between 18 and 24. He also had a criminal record, and any arrest history indicates elevated risk of violence, Mendoza said. In 2005, Revelus was arrested for carrying a loaded gun into a Randolph liquor store. While on probabation, police caught him riding in a car .in Boston with two men who were in possession of illegal firearm. He spent five months in jail and got out in August, the Norfolk County district
attorney’s office said.

In 2004, Revelus was arrested on assault charges after an argument with his sister, Jessica Revelus of Hyde Park. Milton Police records indicated that she dropped the charges.

Mendoza said that it is not unusual for violence to occur within a family, and he noted that most killers know their victims. Similar things could be said of Ryan Bois, a 22-year-old convicted last month of raping and and murdering his 6-year-old cousin in Weymouth. But both Mendoza and Levin cautioned against comparisons between Revelus and Bois. The sexual component of Bois’ crime and the fact that it was not a multiple-victim homicide put him in a different category, psychologically speaking, they said. Multiple-victim homicides within a family are most often committed by middle-aged men against a wife and/or children, Levin said. Often, he said, revenge is the motive: the man is trying to get even with his wife by killing her, their children and sometimes even himself. “Most of the family annihilations involve a husband or father who lost his job or suffered a nasty separation or divorce,” Levin said.

He theorized that Revelus could have felt like an outsider in his family or felt other pressures, like competition. “There are some cases of adolescent boys in their late teens or early 20s who’ve been pressured or suffered extreme mental illness and decided to kill their own family out of a need for revenge,” he said. Neighbors and teens who knew Revelus described him this week as a quiet man who appeared troubled after his release from jail. He was seen walking alone and talking to himself. Although many signs of severe mental illness – like schizophrenia – appear in late adolescence, whether Revelus was mentally ill is not known. Regardless, he may not have fully realized what he was doing last weekend, Mendoza said. ”There’s a disconnect between judgment and emotion” Mendoza said. “And when that happens, it’s almost impossible to prevent anything from happening.”

Nancy Reardon may be
reached at nreardon@ledger.com.

Mental Health Treatment: Then and Now

michelle — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 19:12:48 +0000

Dr. Robert Mendoza

Discussion following 96 Tears. February 20, 2011, 2pm

Dr. Robert Mendoza is a psychologist who has been working in the field of forensic mental health for fifteen years. He is also a forensic neuropsychologist, having completed his feilowship in neuropsychology at Harvard Medical School. He performs over 100 assessments a year for criminal and civil cases including criminal responsibility and competency-to-stand-trial evaluations. He has also consulted on many homicide and cases as well as sexual offender cases. In addition to being a President of Boston Forensic Associates, Dr. Mendoza is an Assistant Professor at Tufts Medical School and is on the staff of Tufts Medical Center in the Department of Psychiatry.

Dr. Mendoza has trained and worked with the severely mentally ill for his entire professional career. He has witnessed firsthand the changes in the commitment laws, including forced medication regulations, changes in guardianships and the slow but steady erosion of community mental health services which has dramatically increased incarceration rates for those whose criminal offense is related to mental illness. Dr. Mendoza lectures around the country on these social and scientific controversies and how clinical and forensic work is the nexus of art, ethic: and science.

michelle — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 17:44:40 +0000

Forensic Mental Health Services

Boston Forensic Associates performs evaluations for cases involving criminal, civil and probate matters. Our clinicians have testified in many jurisdictions and have consulted on cases ranging from murder and other forms of violence, possession and distribution of drugs, guardianships, parenting matters and on cases involving behaviors that may have been influenced by exposure to toxins, head injuries and learning disabilities.