What happens when someone is arrested and charged with a crime?
When someone is arrested and charged with a crime, the police follow a protocol that includes reading the Miranda rights.
A 26-year-old Green Township man has been found not guilty by reason of insanity in connection with the fatal stabbing attack on his mother in the family home last fall.
State Supreme Court Judge Michael Gaus acquitted Louis Selimi of murder and weapons charges in connection with the October 14, 2023, stabbing of 59-year-old Karen Novaco Selimi, who died the next day from her injuries.
Gaus issued a written decision on August 14, finding that defense attorneys had proven that Selimi was mentally ill or suffered from a mental illness that made it impossible for him to distinguish right from wrong when, according to authorities, he walked into the family’s kitchen, grabbed a knife and stabbed his mother five times.
The defense was presented by Selimi’s attorney, Matthew Young, who retained expert Dr. Gary Collins, a Manhattan-based general and forensic psychiatrist, to testify about Selimi’s mental health diagnoses and state of mind before, during and after the stabbing.
Selimi had long suffered from severe and persistent mental illness and at the time of the murder “believed he was a Spider-Man-like figure who saved the creatures,” Collins said during a trial before a single judge on Aug. 7 at the Sussex County Courthouse.
In his capacity as a “protector of society,” Selimi showed signs of paranoia and distrust of his mother. He believed she was going to murder his “beloved dogs” and he had to save them, Collins said. By all accounts, his mother loved the dogs, Collins added.
Collins said his assessment of Selimi was consistent with previous diagnoses of schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder, both of which were “characterized by psychotic episodes and mood swings” that were particularly exacerbated when Selimi stopped taking his medications and instead self-medicated with marijuana or alcohol. In several instances, Selimi engaged in demonic practices and voodoo, burned his blood and had difficulty distinguishing between reality and video games, Collins said.
Young added that his client felt an impulsive need to kill his mother in order to “go to prison and be happy.”
Prosecutors said Selimi woke up the morning of the murder and went downstairs to the kitchen, confronted his mother and stabbed her five times, chased her to the front of the house and then fled. His sister, who had heard noises upstairs, called 911 shortly before 9 a.m. to report her brother had stabbed their mother, Assistant District Attorney Sahil Kabse said. Selimi, who was partially clothed, dropped the bloody knife in the driveway of the Rachel Lane home, went to a neighbor’s house and “told them to call 911 because he had just killed someone,” Kabse said. Selimi was arrested on the neighbor’s porch, police said.
Collins said he watched a video after the stabbing that showed Selimi was “acutely agitated and presumably psychotic.” Selimi told police his mother threatened him and his father pointed a gun at him, although there was no evidence either happened, Collins said.
Collins also believes that Selimi’s behavior and actions are consistent with someone with schizoaffective disorder. He believes that Selimi grabbed the knife “impulsively” and did not intentionally cause his mother’s death. He also believes that if the stabbing had been planned in advance and Collins had shown any sense of guilt, he would likely have fled the scene, had an escape plan or gained some collateral benefit from his mother’s death. There is no evidence that any of that happened, he said.
The judge questioned Collins about Selimi’s decision to tell the neighbor to call the police because he had killed someone. The judge said this seemed to show a guilty conscience. Collins responded by saying that Selimi had no sense of guilt.
“I would say he had no sense of guilt when it came to doing what he thought was the right thing to do,” Collins said. “Perhaps it wasn’t the sense of guilt that he called the police, but it was important to him to either tell them because something had happened to his mother or to alert the authorities that something was going on.”
Kabse considered the plea appropriate, noting that Selimi’s case was “another example” of people not receiving appropriate treatment for mental illnesses and then resorting to self-medication.
“(Selimi’s medical history) speaks to his mental illness and his inability to control it with the prescribed medications. Either they were not enough on their own or he stopped taking them,” Kabse said.
Selimi has self-medicated with alcohol and marijuana in the past, Collins said.
Was this Selimi’s first offense?
Collins spoke about Selimi’s 2020 arrest when he was accused of attacking his father and destroying the family’s Green Township home and their vehicles with a baseball bat. Selimi later pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, criminal damage to property and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and served one year in prison and three years on probation, according to court records. Selimi was also arrested in March 2022 after allegedly punching a Newton Police Department special officer in the face while he was working as a school crossing guard. Selimi admitted to assaulting the officer and served an additional 282 years in the Morris County Jail, records show. He was also sentenced to three years on probation.
The judge wrote in his 2022 guilty verdict that Selimi’s “mental health issues give the court cause for concern that he will reoffend.”
What happens if a defendant is found not guilty by reason of insanity?
Although Selimi was found not guilty due to his mental illness, this does not mean that he did not commit the crime or is innocent. Kabse noted during the trial that Selimi was competent and understood the charges against him.
Selimi will be transferred to the custody of the state Department of Health, where staff will determine whether he can be released into the community with or without conditions, including supervision, without posing a danger to himself or others, according to a post-acquittal document obtained by the New Jersey Herald.
Staff will decide whether Selimi needs to be hospitalized and will inform the court of their decision before his release. A hearing is scheduled for early October.
Karen Novaco Selimi was a “beloved wife, mother, grandmother and friend”
Novaco Selimi was married to her husband Bujar Selimi for 32 years and had four children. She was “kind, loyal and cared deeply about others,” her obituary said, and in addition to several other family members, she left behind four canine companions, according to the obituary.
She loved helping animals, and in lieu of flowers, she asked friends and family to donate to Eleventh Hour, a local nonprofit animal shelter.
Email: [email protected]; Twitter: @LoriComstockNJH or on Facebook.
