NASHUA – Christopher Gribble wasn’t supposed to be talking to state troopers on Oct. 5, 2009, a day after murdering a 42-year-old nurse and stabbing her young daughter.

He was supposed to be talking to a therapist.

Gribble’s father had made him an appointment to see a psychiatrist because his family knew something was wrong, said one of the 21-year-old killer’s defense attorney, Matthew Hill. His devoutly Mormon parents wanted to get him help.

But instead, a tragic combination of forces – Gribble’s own demons, the systematic collapse of the support system that helped him keep his violent urges at bay, and a rekindled friendship with an old Boy Scout buddy – conspired to lead him to 4 Trow Road in Mont Vernon. That’s where he helped brutally murder Kimberly Cates and attack her then 11-year-old daughter, Jaimie, during the early morning hours of Oct. 4, 2009.

Hill showed crime scene photos to the jury. One juror appeared to be holding back tears, her lip trembling when she looked at a photo of Kimberly Cates’ dead body and the more than 30 stabbing, slashing, hacking wounds that covered her head to foot.

“When Chris viewed that scene, he viewed nothing,” Hill said. “He didn’t feel anything because of his mental defect. He’s not like everyone else.”

Hill’s comments came during opening arguments on the first day of Gribble’s insanity trial. Gribble has admitted to his role in the murder but has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Jeff Strelzin, senior assistant attorney general and lead prosecutor, pointed to very different facts to show the jury that Gribble was calculating, cold-hearted and methodical, not an ill young man not in control of his actions.

“He’s not like everyone else,” Strelzin said. “But it’s because he chose to be a murderer, not a madman.”

Hill said Gribble never went to public schools and was home-schooled by his stay-at-home mom, Tamara Gribble. His father, Richard Gribble, works as a computer specialist for the FAA. The family attended the Church of Latter Day Saints in Nashua. His activities outside home consisted almost entirely of church, Boy Scouts and playing Dungeons and Dragons – a type of role-playing game, Hill said.

In 2007, Gribble saw a therapist with the church’s counseling services, Hill said, and was referred to another therapist after talking about hanging his mother upside down by her ankles and pouring boiling water on her.

The second doctor ordered a full psychiatric test, which found characteristics of sociopathy and emerging antisocial personality disorder, Hill said.

Gribble described himself and his co-defendant, Steven Spader, as “sociopaths” to state investigators, according to court records.

It was suggested Gribble be told his diagnosis, but gently, because doctors thought he had a chance of controlling it and living a happy life. Instead, Hill said, Gribble was handed the full report and did research online to learn about some of the terms. He ended up deciding, “I’m broken and can’t be fixed,” Hill said.

In 2008, one of Gribble’s supports, the Boy Scouts, went away when he earned his Eagle Scout designation. Around Thanksgiving that year he had a falling out with his parents and went to live with another family from his church, Hill said.

He also had to switch churches, from the Nashua church that hosts services for families, to one in Lowell, Mass., for single adults. Finally, in August 2009, his girlfriend, Ashley Martin, broke up with him, Hill said.

Also during that time, Gribble reconnected with an old friend from Boy Scouts, Steven Spader, who used Gribble as a tool to fulfill his dreams of murder and mayhem by giving Gribble the social acceptance he so desperately craved, Hill said.

“We can show how Spader was the catalyst, the spark,” he said.

Strelzin countered Hill’s opening arguments by pointing out all the planning and covering up Gribble and Spader did before and after the murder, often using Gribble’s own words to police during interviews the day after.

The comments show, Strelzin said, that Gribble knew what he was doing, why he was doing it, and that he didn’t want to be caught.

“As terrible as that is, it makes him a murderer, not a madman,” Strelzin said. “He wasn’t hallucinating. He wasn’t psychotic. He was always a clear, rational and sane criminal.”

Gribble told state troopers that he had long wanted to kill someone, that the men broke into the Cates home because they were “desperate” for money, and that they decided to kill the people inside to eliminate witnesses so they wouldn’t get caught.

But the original plan was worse than that, Strelzin said. First, the men had planned to use chloroform on the people inside, and even brought blankets and rope to bind them.

The plan, Gribble told troopers, was then to, “take them somewhere and torture them later.”

Gribble also talked about being careful on a broken window so he didn’t leave blood evidence, using bleach and rubbing alcohol to clean the knife and machete used in the attack, and then burying evidence in some woods and throwing other items in the Nashua River.

Talking about the attack itself, Gribble told troopers that Spader “just started swinging at the bed and didn’t stop,” Strelzin said. “I think Steve enjoys just the butchery of it, just the power. I’m more the precision kind of guy. That’s why I aim for specific places.”

The last place he aimed his father’s old Boy Scout knife, prosecutors said, was Kimberly Cates’ throat, finally killing her after the brutal attack.

The state’s psychiatric expert, Dr. Albert Drukteinis, found no evidence of mental illness, Strelzin said, only developmental issues and minor depression, nothing that would qualify for an insanity defense.

And Drukteinis is the only expert involved in the trial that has examined all of the evidence and interviewed Gribble. The defense does not plan to call any doctors that have done so, even though it has the burden of proof in this case, Strelzin said.

And then there are more of Gribble’s own words to troopers about mental illness, Strelzin said: “I don’t use that as an excuse,” and “Steve was just hacking away, he totally lost it. I was controlled but I didn’t really feel much of anything.”

The conflicting opening statements reflect what each of the sides is hoping the jury believes. The defense, which has the burden of proof in an insanity trial, has to show, by clear and convincing evidence, that Gribble’s actions were the result of a mental disease or defect. The state will try to show the opposite; though it doesn’t have the burden of proving Gribble was demonstrably sane at the time.

If the defense fails, Gribble will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The only witness of the day was Wanda Martins, a Peterborough resident who works as an intern in a school guidance office. She met Gribble at the Lowell church and was friends with him before the murder. Martins said she continues to correspond with Gribble and has visited him several times at the Valley Street jail in Manchester. Many of the letters Gribble wrote to her Martins turned over to state police, she said.

Martins told Gribble’s other attorney, Donna Brown, she thought Gribble had a skewed sense of reality because he told her he didn’t believe his mother was his birth mother and that his father was out to get him.

He also talked about being an “angel of death” because his eyes appeared red in photographs, and thought he had a role in the second coming of Christ.

She also said he was socially awkward and didn’t pick up on social cues, often thinking women in the church who he had crushes on felt the same way about him.

“He was just socially awkward. He just said things other people wouldn’t normally say,” Martins said. “I would describe him as just socially off.”

Martins said she was surprised but not “too, too surprised” when she heard about Gribble’s involvement in the murder because of comments like those and other statements he made about having a big temper.

During Assistant Attorney General Peter Hinckley’s cross examination, Martins said she never saw Gribble get really angry and he never seemed to have trouble telling who he was, where he was or what was going on around him. She said he did express to her sometimes when he was upset or hurt by something but was able to control that anger. During her visits to the jail and in his letters to her, Gribble has always seemed intelligent, lucid and coherent, Martins said.

Martins was still on the stand when court concluded for the day and will finish her testimony today.

Jurors began the day by boarding a bus and looking at 4 Trow Road for themselves. They also looked at the dirt pull-off area where Gribble parked on the night of the murder.

Before that, defense attorneys again asked Judge Gillian Abramson to grant a motion to move the trial to another location, citing prior media exposure jurors had to the case. Abramson denied the motion.

Gribble is charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder and burglary, and witness tampering – the same charges Spader was convicted of and sentenced to life in prison for last year.

The two other men in the Cates’ home that morning, Quinn Glover and William Marks, are expected to testify for the state, as is Autumn Savoy, a Hollis man who has admitted to providing Gribble and Spader a false alibi and helping them dispose of evidence.

Gribble’s not guilty by reason of insanity plea means he essentially forfeited his right to a criminal trial, setting the stage for the insanity trial.

If a jury agrees his actions were the result of a mental disease or defect, Abramson would then have to determine if he is still dangerous. If she decides he is no longer a danger, he would be released.

If she decides he is dangerous, Gribble would be committed to a psychiatric unit in the State Prison and be entitled to another hearing every five years to determine whether he still presents a danger.

Joseph G. Cote can be reached at 594-6415 or jcote@nashuatelegraph.com.