Boy who killed dad given 10 more years in custody

Another case of child violence where Prozac is involved.

After a trial that some members called the saddest experience of their lives, a jury decided Thursday that a boy who climbed into his father's sport utility vehicle and shot him to death should spend 10 more years in custody.

The verdict ended three days of deliberations in a Harris County juvenile court where the boy, now 12, was held responsible for the August 2004 slaying of physician Rick Lohstroh.

But although they agreed last week that he "committed an act of delinquent conduct" in shooting his father, jurors said they thought about his best interests in deciding what should be done with him. Two of them, and the attorneys for both sides, agreed that he had been badly traumatized by his parents' bitter relationship.

His mother, Deborah Geisler, wept as she left the downtown Houston courtroom after hearing the verdict and did not speak to reporters.

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Defense attorney Chris Tritico said the case will be appealed. He said the boy, whom the Houston Chronicle is not identifying because of his age, suffered from psychosis brought on by 90 milligrams of Prozac he took weekly for anxiety and depression disorders.

The boy also was traumatized by parental fights that brought police to the family's home more than two dozen times in seven years, Tritico said. He said Geisler "poisoned" the boy against his father.

The shooting took place after Lohstroh, a 41-year-old physician at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, went to his ex-wife's home to pick up the boy and his younger brother. Investigators said the boy got into Lohstroh's SUV with his mother's .45-caliber pistol and fired through the back of the driver's seat.

Magness, a high school English teacher, said jurors were one vote shy of giving the boy probation at one point. They finally decided it was best to keep him in a youth facility away from his mother, said Magness, 38.

"This case is the saddest thing most of us have been involved with," he said.

Testimony showed that the boy had "as bad a home life as any child you have ever seen," Magness said.

Fellow juror Lee Kennerson, a 69-year-old retiree, agreed.

The boy, who was 10 at the time of the shooting, faced a sentence ranging from probation to 40 years in custody.

"I think justice was served," said prosecutor Bill Hawkins. "It's sad that it has to be this way."

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The Greenes' wrongful-death lawsuit against Geisler and Swanson is set for trial in December. The complaint also names the pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly and Co. and Mallinckrodt Inc., alleging that the older boy's use of the antidepressant fluoxetine, commonly known as Prozac, created a state of "agitation, depersonalization, hostility and mania leading to violence. ... "

Geisler said her son was still piecing together happened at the trial, struggling to understand. When she spoke to him Thursday, she said, he asked her to bring Chinese food and chocolate during her next visit.

"He knows very little about where he is going to be going," she said.