Day 1 of hearing for confessed murderer

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - The hearing to determine if Jeremy Bentley, who confessed to a murder in 2000, should be released is scheduled to resume Friday.

Bentley has been in a mental health facility for the last seven years, and according to his doctor, he is no longer insane.

Bentley confessed he killed a man "just to see what it was like, the thrill.”

Bentley and David Kabat kidnapped 24-year-old Jamie Tolbert from a bar in Biloxi.

Tolbert's body was later found in a wooded area near Grand Bay. He had been beaten and strangled.

Bentley was sentenced to life without parole. However, that sentence was appealed. That's when he was found not guilty by reason of mental disease.

Bentley was treated at the Taylor Hardin Facility in Tuscaloosa. The Alabama Department of Mental Health said he is no longer insane and should be released.

Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich said she will do whatever it takes to make sure he stays locked up.

Bentley sat in the courtroom behind his defense team, Lila Cleveland and Gregory Hughes. Just a few feet away the victim’s mother, Cindy Williams, watched as the first expert witness took the stand.

Psychologist John Tompkins testified first for the defense. He said Bentley showed no signs of mental illness and was only being treated for anxiety.

"I feel like they don't want him. Taylor Hardin doesn’t want him, and that’s the way I feel about it," Williams said.

Tompkins said during psychological testing, Bentley performed "fake bad", and in the latest test scored "valid". Dr. Tompkins testified that in the first results Bentley was trying to fake a negative result, but in the latest test he wasn't trying to.

“He's learned how to say the words, but the behavior doesn't fit,” Tompkins said.

The defense also pointed out that Bentley has scored above average on IQ tests.

Dr. Tompkins went on to say the physiological tests showed signs of conflict with authority, trouble with relationships, but no psychosis or other serious mental illness.

"He (Bentley) doesn't have a whole lot of concern for his fellow man, therefore has no problem using violence to get what he wants," Tompkins said.

The defense also called Dr. William Freeman to the stand. Freeman is Bentley’s treating psychiatrist at Taylor Hardin.

Freeman said he's seen Bentley approximately 16 times, each visit lasting between 5-15 minutes. Freeman stated he is of the opinion that Bentley does not have a mental illness.

Freeman said he's only seen two people with dissociative identity disorder, one of several mental defects Bentley was originally diagnosed with, and said Bentley does not have it.

Rich asked, “When was he cured?”

Tompkins answered, “He never had it so he wasn't cured at all.”

Rich pointed to the fact that Bentley had been in solitary confinement since December for violent behavior.

“A person must be mentally stable to be in solitary confinement,” Freeman said.

She cited Bentley’s violent history at Taylor Hardin in which on several occasions he assaulted patients, nurses and employees.

In 2010, Bentley was arrested for assaulting an officer at Taylor Hardin and stayed at Tuscaloosa County Jail for several months.

Rich asked whether or not Freeman think Bentley would kill again.

“My opinion is that he is at risk for killing again,” Freeman said. "He has shown the tenancy to not be concerned with what happens to another person.”

Freeman also said no one at Taylor Hardin believed that he had the diagnosis of DID or psychosis.

Rich brought up Bentley’s past. She cited a report in which Bentley’s mother said he had been hearing voices in his head since age 9. At one point he thought witches were trying to get him and would block out his windows so no one could see him. She cited current medical reports saying he has been blocking out his windows at Taylor Hardin as well.

In the report, his mom reported him saying he was “here to kill people one day.”

Freeman said a true schizophrenic hears voices outside the head and that he had never seen any evidence that Bentley did in fact hear voices.

Freeman said he doesn’t believe Bentley was having psychotic delusions since he’s been in the legal system. Instead he was faking once he got into the legal system to his advantage.

Rich then cited an incident in 2006 when Bentley attacked a co-patient. In the report it said Bentley remembers hitting the patient once but not after that. Bentley reported “the demons woke up.”

Friday, two witnesses that previously testified for the defense will testify for the state.

“In the end, it’s a battle of the experts; two believing that he no longer suffers from mental illness and two believing he does. And then it will be up to the judge to rectify all the evidence he's heard today and tomorrow,” Rich said.

Williams said she will be in the courtroom as well.

"It burns me up for us to have to come down here and sit on a hard bench just for that sorry thing. I know he’s entitled, but it ticks me off to know that my family has to come down here