NASHUA – As a 17-year-old, Christopher Gribble was thinking a lot about killing his parents.

He had been accused of sexually harassing a woman at his church.

He said his mother had physically and emotionally abused him and that his brother had looked at pornography on his computer and then blamed him.

Gribble may have been mildly depressed and was heading toward a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, said Dr. Grace Tallarico, a psychiatrist who interviewed him several times in the spring and summer of 2007, two years before Gribble, now 21, helped kill Kimberly Cates and maim her daughter, Jaimie, then 11.

A church counselor, Jeffrey Troutman, talked to Gribble after the allegations of sexual harassment surfaced. He referred the teenager to Tallarico after Gribble talked of killing his parents, Tallarico testified Friday.

Tallarico, a clinical psychiatrist at the Counseling Center of Nashua, was testifying during the second day of Gribble’s insanity trial in Hillsborough County Superior Court for the Oct. 4, 2009, murder of Kimberly Cates and attack on Jaimie Cates. He has admitted to using his father’s old Boy Scout knife in the attack and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Tallarico said Gribble showed emerging traits of antisocial personality disorder, which includes a wide range of symptoms, including ignoring other people’s feelings, breaking the law, lying, impulsivity and lack of remorse.

His manner when he talked to her was polite and coherent, but also stiff and a little awkward, Tallarico said, and he was calm when he talked about having “homicidal ideations.”

“That struck me,” Tallarico said.

After prescribing him Prozac for depression in June 2007, she ordered a full round of psychological tests, which were administered by another doctor at the Counseling Center, Tallarico said. Those tests confirmed her diagnosis of emerging antisocial personality disorder.

Tallarico said she also strongly recommended he undergo psychotherapy, but doesn’t know if he ever did.

Tallarico said she didn’t diagnosis Gribble with antisocial personality disorder because a patient has to be at least 18 to get such a diagnosis. While being cross-examined by Assistant Attorney General Peter Hinckley, she said even if Gribble had been 18, he hadn’t demonstrated “a pervasive pattern” of antisocial behavior over time, which is also required for a diagnosis.

In fact, she said Gribble functioned in society quite well, although he had trouble socializing. She said he had homicidal thoughts, but was able to control them and expressed to her why it would be wrong to kill someone, both morally and legally, and the consequences if he did kill someone.

The most she could say is that Gribble showed signs that he was headed toward a full-on diagnosis of the disorder, Tallarico said.

Antisocial personality disorder encompasses psychopathic and sociopathic disorders, according to experts interviewed before the trial.

Dr. Duncan Gill, the medical director at Direction Behavioral Health Associates in Nashua, is unconnected to the case, but agreed to talk generally about antisocial personality disorder. It’s characterized chiefly by a lack of empathy, he said.

Gill said the terms “psychopath” and “psychotic” are often confused, but are actually different.

A person experiencing psychosis is suffering a break from reality, usually in the form of hallucinations or delusions. A psychopath knows what reality is, but simply doesn’t feel empathy and doesn’t care what social rules demand of him or her, Gill said.

The disorder essentially boils down to a personality disposed to committing crimes, Gill said.

“It fills the prisons,” he said. “It’s really a wastebasket term in some ways. It doesn’t really tell you much.”

The disorder also implies “an impaired ability to empathize with others,” Gill said.

Before Tallarico took the stand, Wanda Martins finished the testimony she began Thursday.

Martins was friends with Gribble before his arrest, and has continued to correspond with him and has visited him several times at the Valley Street jail in Manchester.

Martins said before admitting to the murder and pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, Gribble implied in his letters that he wasn’t involved in the murder. He blamed police, the media and his father in those letters, Martins said. Later, he wrote to her about his plans to somehow get a prison sentence of 7-15 years and getting out in as few as six years for good behavior.

Martins said she didn’t know how he planned to get such a light sentence, but said making up an insanity plea is one thing he could have been thinking about.

Gribble never mentioned any remorse for the Cates family, Martins said, but did write about how he didn’t like being in jail because of the food, the rules, not being able to watch television and being bored.

He was looking forward to getting better accommodations in prison, including better food and being able to have a television and MP3 player in his cell, according to his letters, Martin said.

Gribble started writing about having a role in the second coming of Christ and citing Bible passages in his letters to Martin after learning she had met with investigators, Martin said, and mentioned that she could share his thoughts on the second coming with the attorney general’s office.

Gribble’s lawyers, Donna Brown and Matthew Hill, have told the jury that Gribble was struggling with antisocial personality disorder and caved in 2009 after his support system – family, church and Boy Scouts – gave way and he fell in with Steven Spader.

Spader was sentenced to life in prison after his trial last year on the same charges Gribble faces.

Gribble is charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder and burglary, and witness tampering. He faces life in prison without parole.

By pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, he forfeited his criminal trial and his lawyers must show his actions were the result of a mental disease or defect or he’ll be found guilty.

The trial will continue Monday morning, and is expected to last about two weeks.

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.

If a jury agrees Gribble’s actions were the result of a mental disease or defect, Judge Gillian Abramson would then have to determine whether he’s 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.