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1 0 - 1 2 - 2 0 0 4 Police report says slay suspect told parents he 'shot someone'
Westfield man, 23, hospitalized
By Associated Press
AMHERST -- The 23-year-old Westfield man accused of killing his high school friend told his parents a day after the slaying that he shot someone, according to a police report.
The report, filed in Hadley District Court and released yesterday, says police found blood on Bryan Johnston's clothes and in his car after David C. Sullivan, a 22-year-old senior at the University of Massachusetts, was killed.
"He had told his parents that he had shot someone," said the report, written by Amherst police Lieutenant Ronald A. Young.
Young's report says Johnston had called Sullivan to go out about 10:30 Tuesday night, but Sullivan refused. The two had gotten into a fight earlier, but the report did not indicate what the altercation was about.
Young could not be reached for comment.
Elizabeth Dunphy Farris, Northwestern assistant district attorney, said Johnston was suffering from steroid withdrawal. But neither she nor Johnston's lawyer, Edward Berlin, indicated that steroids were a factor in the slaying. Authorities have not disclosed a motive. Sullivan and Johnston graduated from Wahconah Regional High School in Dalton in 2000. Sullivan, who was from the Berkshire County town of Washington, was expected to graduate from UMass next spring. Johnston attended the University of Hawaii but transferred to Westfield State College.
The report says Johnston has a revoked Class A firearm license and owns a Colt .223 rifle, which is capable of firing the six shell casings that police recovered when they found Sullivan early Tuesday morning in the bedroom of his off-campus apartment on Meadow Street. Hadley police stopped Johnston about 7 miles from Sullivan's apartment at 12:45 Wednesday morning, but released him, the report says. The report does not explain why Sullivan was stopped. Hadley police officials could not be reached for comment.
About three hours after dealing with the Hadley police, Johnston contacted his parents and was "admitted to Noble Hospital for his own protection," the report says.
Dunphy Farris said yesterday that Johnston was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward at Noble, which is in Westfield. She would not say who committed him or why. He later agreed to voluntarily commit himself, she said.
After a court-ordered examination yesterday, Johnston was deemed competent to stand trial, Dunphy Farris said. He is being held at the Hampshire County House of Correction without bail and is scheduled to return to court Jan. 26.
Johnston's mother had asked that her son be allowed to remain at Noble Hospital rather than being transferred to prison because of concern that he could suffer renal failure or a heart attack from steroid withdrawal.
"The reason this was raised had nothing to do with a concern about his mental capacity," Berlin said. "There were medical concerns that we had."
Dr. Harrison G. Pope, director of the biological psychiatry laboratory at Harvard Medical School's McLean Hospital in Belmont, said steroids use can lead to violent behavior.
"I am quite convinced that there are cases where there are violent crimes that simply wouldn't have happened if the suspected individual had not been taking steroids," said Pope, who says he has testified in about 20 trials where steroid use was suspected of playing a role in a crime.
"There have been cases of normal, ordinary guys with no criminal history or police record who went on steroids and committed violent crimes," Pope said.
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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
