Guilty: Midtown shooter’s insanity defense fails at trial
It took a dozen Fulton County jurors less than two hours Monday to find Raissa Kengne guilty but mentally ill in the shooting deaths of her former boss and apartment complex manager.
The jurors rejected Kengne’s insanity defense in the case stemming from a series of shootings in Midtown in August 2022 that sent one of the busiest and most expensive parts of Atlanta into a frenzy.
Kengne was found guilty but mentally ill of 14 felony charges, including two counts of malice murder.
Fulton County prosecutor Adam Abbate said Kengne methodically planned her attack, buying a Glock 19 handgun and a lesson in using the weapon in the days before the shootings. He said she “picked her targets” thinking they had wronged her and was “cool, calm and collected” while carrying out the “retribution by execution.”
Kengne then tried to flee and cover up her involvement, further indicating she knew she’d done wrong, Abbate said in his closing argument Monday.
“Each step that she took proved she understood the consequences of her actions,” he said. “She knew what she was doing. She knew what the outcomes would be. And she attempted to escape responsibility.”
The jurors had four verdict options for each charge: guilty, guilty but mentally ill, not guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity. To find the latter, the jurors had to conclude either that Kengne did not know right from wrong at the time of the crime, or she was compelled to act by an overpowering delusion.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shukura Ingram had explained that if found guilty but mentally ill, Kengne would be sentenced and evaluated by the Georgia Department of Corrections regarding whether she serves her sentence in prison or a state mental health facility.
Kengne has been in custody since she was arrested at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport a couple of hours after Michael Shinners, 60, and Wesley Freeman, 41, were fatally shot in Midtown on Aug. 22, 2022. Police said Kengne, 34 at the time, also shot and wounded a third man, Mike Horne, and held a young woman, Zamir Steed, at gunpoint before getting a taxi to the airport that Monday afternoon.
On the way to the airport, Kengne briefly stopped at the Ansley Park home of a lawyer, Michael Sullivan, who had represented her in relation to a civil case. Prosecutors said she intended to shoot Sullivan, who was not home.
Prosecutors said Kengne had a “hit list” of people she thought had mistreated her, including Freeman, Shinners and Sullivan. She had unsuccessfully sued some of those people, among others, court records show.
When apprehended, Kengne still had her gun, the “hit list,” her passport and $3,000 in cash she had withdrawn from Truist Bank at Colony Square before calling a taxi, prosecutors said.
Shinners was the property manager and Horne was the chief building engineer of the high-rise Midtown apartment complex, 1280 West, where Kengne had lived for several years. Steed was an administrative assistant at 1280 West, where Shinners and Horne were shot around 1:45 p.m.
Freeman was shot about 30 minutes later at his workplace, BDO USA, in a nearby office tower on Peachtree Street. He was Kengne’s former boss at the public accounting firm.
Kengne did not deny that she was the shooter.
“This is all about the why,” defense attorney Dwight Thomas said Monday in his closing argument. “Not the what. Not the where. Not even the how.”
The jurors heard contrasting testimony last week from several medical experts about whether Kengne knew right from wrong at the time of the shootings.
Psychologist Robert Shaffer, a defense witness, testified Thursday that Kengne has schizophrenia and did not have the mental capacity to know her actions were wrong. He talked about the delusions and paranoia she had been experiencing, including her belief that people were breaking into her apartment daily and trying to poison her.
Brandon Sims, a forensic psychiatrist for the state, testified Friday that Kengne’s avoidance of law enforcement and coherent conversations with some of the people she encountered, among her other actions that day, shows she did know right from wrong and is criminally responsible.
“It all seems like it was very well executed,” he said. “She understood that what she had just done would require a response from law enforcement. She didn’t wish to be around when they arrived.”
Sims pointed out that Kengne concealed her gun and her involvement in the shootings and did not return to her condo. He said she was “mentally ill” but able to rationalize, noting that she reported resisting “voices” telling her to walk into traffic a few days before the shootings.
Emile Risby, the medical director for the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, agreed with Sims that Kengne knew the difference between right and wrong.
“The shootings were not spontaneous or random,” he said. “Ms. Kengne shot people who she thought had done her some injustice. She didn’t shoot people who she didn’t believe did her any injustice.”
Kengne was deemed competent to stand trial last year, having been given antipsychotic medication under a court order.
Thomas told the jurors that if they found Kengne not guilty by reason of insanity, she would be committed to a state mental health facility and a judge would decide if she could ever be released. He said that Kengne’s fate would otherwise be left to the “‘Shawshank Redemption’ wardens” of the Georgia Department of Corrections, likening that to “putting down a dog with rabies.”
About the Author
Journalist Rosie Manins is a crime and courts reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
