Borderline Personality Disorder

In the courtroom battle over whether Mustafa Ali should live or die for murdering two armored-car guards in 2007, attorneys on both sides turned to psychiatrists yesterday. The Common Pleas jury that will deliberate his fate also saw videotaped interviews of Ali's two young sons conducted by the Defender Association of Philadelphia, which is representing Ali. Some jurors smiled at the musings and colorful drawings of the bubbly boys - ages 9 and 6 - while others observed with stone faces.

A Commonwealth Court judge yesterday ordered killer cobbler Joseph Kallinger, who is on a hunger strike, force fed after the Department of Public Welfare argued he would die "within days" without nourishment. Commonwealth Judge Emil Narick issued the preliminary injunction ordering Kallinger to be fed while the DPW appealed a Wayne County Court order granted Tuesday that allowed Kallinger to starve himself to death. The Kensington shoemaker, who went on a widely publicized killing rampage in 1975, said the "Holy Spirit" told him to stop eating, drinking and taking his medicine after an argument with a psychiatrist at Farview State Hospital for the Criminally Insane on June 22. Swadesh K. Ahluwalia, a Farview doctor, said Kallinger could suffer "severe and irreparable harm including death within the next few days," according to a petition filed in Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg.

A Superior Court yesterday accepted Charles Cohen's plea that he was guilty but mentally ill when he murdered his parents in their Hockessin, Del., home on Nov. 12, 1988. Prosecutor Stephen Walther said that the state will seek the death penalty. Cohen, 26, admitted to Judge Jerome O. Herlihy on Wednesday that he killed his parents, Martin and Ethel Cohen, by bludgeoning them with a barbell. Martin Cohen was director of the Delaware State Hospital, a mental health institution.

A 21-year-old woman who admitted stealing a 4-month-old girl from Children's Hospital on April 23 has been sentenced to 23 to 46 months in prison, plus three years' probation. Common Pleas Judge Anthony J. DeFino told Cherylle Staley yesterday that his sentence would have been more severe if "I thought for one minute you intended to hurt the child in any way. " "I'm very sorry for what happened," Staley said. "I realize my crime and I'm very sorry. I feel as though I do need professional help.

The Baltimore Ravens signed veteran running back Ricky Williams to replace Willis McGahee, who was released before training camp. Williams agreed to a two-year deal, the team announced on Monday in Owings Mills, Md. Williams, who played last season with the Miami Dolphins, will work in tandem with Ray Rice. Last season, Williams, 34, averaged 4.2 yards per carry for Miami. He gained 673 yards and scored two touchdowns, splitting time with Ronnie Brown, who signed with the Eagles last week.

The former swimming coach trembled and sobbed as he admitted to having an affair with his 14-year-old protegee. Perhaps, authorities say, he loved the young girl and wanted to help her achieve her dream: to swim for the Germantown Academy swim team. But he went too far, prosecutors say: He broke the law. Joseph Weber's shaved head was lowered, his voice barely audible, as he pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Court yesterday to charges of involuntary deviant sexual intercourse and corruption of a minor.

Two Kenneth Houseknechts who killed Kim Marie Anderson under two different circumstances were described here yesterday by lawyers in their closing arguments. Now it will be up to the jury to decide who the real Kenneth Houseknecht was. First, there was defense attorney Wayne Natale's Houseknecht: a child who by age 5 had been rejected by his mother and who suffered emotional and physical abuse from his parents. Because of that rejection and abuse, he developed a borderline personality disorder, meaning he was on the edge of psychosis.

John Joseph Murray has spent a good chunk of his adult life wrestling with his private demons in a public way. His nearly decade-long odyssey through the Bucks County Court system has most often led him back to prison or to involuntary commitments at Norristown State Hospital. That's about to change. Murray, 29, was in Bucks County Court on Tuesday to be sentenced for threatening the lives of a Bucks County judge and a public defender. A jury in August convicted Murray of sending the two men ominous letters from jail last April, warning that he would kill, rape and burn them.

Though Common Pleas Judge David Savitt agreed that Jonathan Margoles was mentally ill when he fired 14 bullets into his estranged wife, Jo-Ann, he still found Margoles guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison. Margoles killed his wife on March 29, 1988, as she sat in a van with the couple's daughter, Hannah, 6, and Jo-Ann Margoles' fiance, Joseph Bezotsky, 35, at Bridge Street and Oxford Avenue, near Oxford Circle. Two of the bullets passed through the mother's body and wounded the daughter in the left hip and leg. The girl has since recovered.

Joseph Guagenti thought he shot the devil when he killed his ex-girlfriend, a go-go dancer, after she stepped offstage in a Camden bar in August 1985, a psychiatrist testified in Guagenti's murder trial yesterday. Forensic psychiatrist Robert Sadoff testified that Guagenti was legally insane when he shot Patricia Nace in the Admiral Liquor Store & Bar because he "did not know the nature and quality of his actions. " Sadoff was the first of seven expert witnesses expected to testify about the sanity of Guagenti, 28, a former house painter from Williamstown, Gloucester County.

The Baltimore Ravens signed veteran running back Ricky Williams to replace Willis McGahee, who was released before training camp. Williams agreed to a two-year deal, the team announced on Monday in Owings Mills, Md. Williams, who played last season with the Miami Dolphins, will work in tandem with Ray Rice. Last season, Williams, 34, averaged 4.2 yards per carry for Miami. He gained 673 yards and scored two touchdowns, splitting time with Ronnie Brown, who signed with the Eagles last week.

THE BALTIMORE Ravens landed veteran running back Ricky Williams to replace Willis McGahee, who they let go days before training camp. Williams agreed to a 2-year deal, the team announced yesterday. The former Heisman Trophy winner played last season with the Miami Dolphins and if everything goes well with his physical today, Williams will work in tandem with Ray Rice. "He's a veteran that brings a lot of leadership," Rice said. "I'm looking to learn a lot from him. I'm looking forward to working with him. " A former Pro Bowler, Williams rushed for a career-high 1,853 yards to lead the league in 2002.

Mustafa Ali, convicted last week of first-degree murder of two armored-car guards during a botched robbery, yesterday was sentenced to spend the rest of his natural life in prison without parole. The prosecutor had sought the death penalty. The sentence, delivered early last night by a Common Pleas Court jury, capped a trial that began Feb. 1 and included testimony from dozens of witnesses, including experts from New York, Washington and Atlanta, Ga. As was the case throughout the trial, Ali, 39, expressed no outward emotion when the jury foreman read the sentence.

In the courtroom battle over whether Mustafa Ali should live or die for murdering two armored-car guards in 2007, attorneys on both sides turned to psychiatrists yesterday. The Common Pleas jury that will deliberate his fate also saw videotaped interviews of Ali's two young sons conducted by the Defender Association of Philadelphia, which is representing Ali. Some jurors smiled at the musings and colorful drawings of the bubbly boys - ages 9 and 6 - while others observed with stone faces.

For an 18th-birthday present, Jocelyn S. Kirsch got breast implants - an operation performed by her plastic-surgeon father. The day after she graduated from high school, her mother left her behind and took off to California. Arrested for shoplifting four times, she has admitted stealing merchandise on as many as 100 other occasions without getting caught. And she hasn't spoken to her only brother in years. Those are just a few excerpts from the psychologically troubled backstory of Kirsch, 23. Her stunning looks captivated an international audience when she was arrested in December in a bold identity-fraud scam in Philadelphia.

The former swimming coach trembled and sobbed as he admitted to having an affair with his 14-year-old protegee. Perhaps, authorities say, he loved the young girl and wanted to help her achieve her dream: to swim for the Germantown Academy swim team. But he went too far, prosecutors say: He broke the law. Joseph Weber's shaved head was lowered, his voice barely audible, as he pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Court yesterday to charges of involuntary deviant sexual intercourse and corruption of a minor.

John Joseph Murray has spent a good chunk of his adult life wrestling with his private demons in a public way. His nearly decade-long odyssey through the Bucks County Court system has most often led him back to prison or to involuntary commitments at Norristown State Hospital. That's about to change. Murray, 29, was in Bucks County Court on Tuesday to be sentenced for threatening the lives of a Bucks County judge and a public defender. A jury in August convicted Murray of sending the two men ominous letters from jail last April, warning that he would kill, rape and burn them.

A Superior Court yesterday accepted Charles Cohen's plea that he was guilty but mentally ill when he murdered his parents in their Hockessin, Del., home on Nov. 12, 1988. Prosecutor Stephen Walther said that the state will seek the death penalty. Cohen, 26, admitted to Judge Jerome O. Herlihy on Wednesday that he killed his parents, Martin and Ethel Cohen, by bludgeoning them with a barbell. Martin Cohen was director of the Delaware State Hospital, a mental health institution.

Two Kenneth Houseknechts who killed Kim Marie Anderson under two different circumstances were described here yesterday by lawyers in their closing arguments. Now it will be up to the jury to decide who the real Kenneth Houseknecht was. First, there was defense attorney Wayne Natale's Houseknecht: a child who by age 5 had been rejected by his mother and who suffered emotional and physical abuse from his parents. Because of that rejection and abuse, he developed a borderline personality disorder, meaning he was on the edge of psychosis.

A Commonwealth Court judge yesterday ordered killer cobbler Joseph Kallinger, who is on a hunger strike, force fed after the Department of Public Welfare argued he would die "within days" without nourishment. Commonwealth Judge Emil Narick issued the preliminary injunction ordering Kallinger to be fed while the DPW appealed a Wayne County Court order granted Tuesday that allowed Kallinger to starve himself to death. The Kensington shoemaker, who went on a widely publicized killing rampage in 1975, said the "Holy Spirit" told him to stop eating, drinking and taking his medicine after an argument with a psychiatrist at Farview State Hospital for the Criminally Insane on June 22. Swadesh K. Ahluwalia, a Farview doctor, said Kallinger could suffer "severe and irreparable harm including death within the next few days," according to a petition filed in Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg.