Jury rejects teen’s Zoloft defense

CHARLESTON, S.C. – A 15-year-old boy who claimed the antidepressant Zoloft drove him to kill his grandparents and burn their house down was found guilty of murder Tuesday and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The jury took six hours to reject Christopher Pittman’s claim that he was “involuntarily intoxicated” by the drug and could not be held responsible for the crime.

The case was one of the first of its kind to come to trial in the United States since the government began taking a close look at dangers of antidepressant use among teenagers.

Pittman was 12 in 2001 when he killed his grandparents, Joe Pittman, 66, and Joy Pittman, 62, with a pump-action shotgun as they slept in their rural home, then torched their house and drove off in their car. He was charged as an adult.

Pittman hung his head as the verdict was read.

“I know it’s in the hands of God. Whatever he decides on, that’s what it’s going to be,” he said quietly, just before Judge Danny Pieper handed down the minimum sentence. The boy could have gotten life in prison.

About a month before the slayings, Pittman was hospitalized after threatening to kill himself. He was prescribed the antidepressant Paxil and was later put on Zoloft.

A psychiatrist testified for the defense that Zoloft was to blame for the killings, and a former Food and Drug Administration official told the jury that the crime was an angry, rash, manic act “that was chemically induced.”

But prosecutors called the Zoloft defense a smokescreen, saying the boy knew exactly what he was doing. Prosecutor Barney Giese said the boy was simply angry at his grandparents for disciplining him for choking a younger student on a school bus.

Pfizer Inc., manufacturer of Zoloft, said in a statement after the verdict: “Zoloft didn’t cause his problems, nor did the medication drive him to commit murder. On these two points, both Pfizer and the jury agree.”

Zoloft is the most widely prescribed antidepressant in the United States.