Mom Who Smothered Girl Gets Mental Evaluation

The mental state of a Spokane woman who smothered her paralyzed teenage daughter is being examined at the request of her attorney.

A psychiatrist and a psychologist took turns this week interviewing Deborah Rockstrom at Eastern State Hospital.

Their confidential reports may influence how the case is handled.

Defense attorney Richard Cease requested the evaluations in an apparent attempt to sway prosecutors, who have yet to file formal charges against the woman who confessed to the killing on Feb. 21 and was arrested on suspicion of murder.

If Rockstrom, 36, is found to be suffering from severe emotional trauma due to her daughter’s condition, prosecutors may shy away from filing a murder charge.

“We’re working on it,” deputy prosecutor Pat Thompson said Friday.

Cease declined to discuss the developments.

The mental-health evaluators - psychiatrist Verne Cressey and psychologist Dennis Sheppard - also were asked to determine if Rockstrom is sane and capable of assisting in her defense.

Rockstrom told police it was a mercy killing. She admitted drugging and smothering her 14-year-old daughter in their West Euclid home.

Erin Rockstrom accidentally was shot in the face Sept. 5, 1993, during a party with other teenagers at the home of a friend whose parents were out of town. One boy was playing with a .22-caliber handgun when it went off.

The bullet pierced the girl’s right cheek, traveled through her brain and lodged in her brain stem.

After the shooting, she was unable to walk, talk or hold up her head, relatives said.

Deborah Rockstrom became convinced that her daughter wanted to die and spoke about fulfilling that wish shortly before last Christmas, police said.

Her husband, Steve Rockstrom, refused to go along with the idea. He told her not to raise the subject again, according to court documents.

Authorities are now reviewing Erin Rockstrom’s therapy records in an attempt to determine whether she really did express a desire to die.

Although mercy-killing cases are rare, this is Cease’s second as a defense lawyer.

In 1988, he represented retired Spokane attorney Wallace Jones, who shot and killed his disabled wife.

Jones was charged with seconddegree murder, but sympathetic jurors were convinced he loved his wife.

They convicted him of second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.