Saturday, September 23, 2000
Trial to proceed in fatal shooting
By Sheila McLaughlin
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LEBANON — For Jeffrey Bornhoeft, marriage was supposed to last forever.
On April 15, 1998, when his wife left him in Tennessee, it came as a surprise, a psychologist testified Friday.
“He indicated he wished he had died then,” said Dr. Russell Dern, executive director of the Community Mental Health Services of Warren County.
A judge, though, found Mr. Bornhoeft competent Friday to stand trial in a case that could send him to Ohio's Death Row for killing his ex-wife's husband last April.
Dr. Dern, who spent more than an hour on the witness stand, said Mr. Bornhoeft, who has raised an insanity plea to a charge of aggravated murder, exhibited symptoms of paranoia, depression, schizophrenia and other mental problems.
After Mr. Bornhoeft's arrest on April 7, he was placed on suicide watch at the Warren County Jail several times and has attempted to kill himself twice, Dr. Dern said.
According to jail officials, Mr. Bornhoeft, 31, was on suicide watch May 28, when he tied a paper gown around his neck in an attempt to strangle himself. On Sept. 15, he told corrections officers he had consumed 10 anti-depressant Elavil pills because he wanted to die.
The issue of Mr. Bornhoeft's sanity will be determined in a trial scheduled to begin Oct. 30.
The Mason father of three admitted shooting Shawn Johnson's new husband, James, at the couple's apartment on Georgetown Drive in Lebanon.
Police said Mr. Johnson, 23, was shot in the back of the head while he slept. Police said Mr. Bornhoeft then held them at bay for three hours outside the apartment building, threatening to shoot himself in the head.
His lawyers said he has suffered bouts with emotional problems since the breakup with his wife.
Police records in Loudon County, Tenn., where Mr. Bornhoeft was raised, indicate that he attempted to harm himself in August 1998 and was placed in court-ordered counseling. Three months later, he was fined $10 and ordered to undergo counseling after he was found guilty of assault. Police said he held his wife at gunpoint. They were divorced in December 1999.
After the Johnsons moved to Lebanon in 1999, Mr. Bornhoeft followed so he could visit his children, his mother told the Enquirer.
On Friday Mr. Bornhoeft sat wide-eyed, staring into space, while one of two defense lawyers questioned Dr. Dern.
Mr. Bornhoeft's parents and brother, who had driven from Tennessee, sat directly behind him.
After the hearing, as Mr. Bornhoeft was being led from the courtroom back to jail, he paused to embrace his mother.
Joy Bornhoeft sobbed as she buried her head into her son's neck. Defense lawyer Kevin Thornton watched the emotional moment.
“It's the first time she's been able to touch him in six months,” he said.
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