At least that’s what her attorney is arguing right now. Hemphill Pride, attorney for Zinah Jennings, filed motions yesterday requesting that Zinah be provided medical care for mental illness and provided prenatal care. As one commenter stated on a local news article web page…oh that’s just peachy.
Ground searches took place yesterday in central South Carolina for missing 2-year-old Amir Jennings. No one has seen Amir since the day before Thanksgiving 2011. Law enforcement state the searches yesterday were based on “credible information” which took them to near a small church in Richland County, SC. They began a multi-agency search, which included K-9 and cadaver dogs, in an 8-mile-radius around the small rural church. The search ended around 6 hours after beginning with law enforcement reporting they found nothing of significance.
Meanwhile Pride states his client, Zinah, is not speaking to police – most likely upon his advice – and is “on psychiatric medication”. The motions he filed yesterday refer to psychiatric treatment including the medication Risperdal, which is used to treat symptoms of schizophrenia. This is not the first time schizophrenia has been brought up, by the way. On the day Zinah was arrested her half-sister told police that Zinah suffered from “schizophrenic tendencies” that had gone undiagnosed.
On January 11th of this year Michael Ferlauto, M.D. conducted a court-ordered psychiatric examination of Zinah. Ferlauto reported that Zinah
…is mentally ill, needs involuntary treatment and because of this mental illness…lacks sufficient insight or capacity to make responsible decisions with respect to his/her treatment.
Zinah was then ordered to have psychiatric treatment including the prescribing of the Riperdal and has been held at a psychiatric facility in Columbia.
AND…Pride claims she’s pregnant. Joy of joys. Apparently a preganancy test was administered on Christmas Eve, the day Zinah had her car accident and was first ID’d as a missing person being sought by authorities. That pregnancy test came back negative. However, a subsequent test days later came back positive.
Since Zinah Jennings was arrested on November 9th for prostitution, baby-daddy probably won’t ever be identified. BUT, the good news is (at least one would hope) that since she’s now sitting in a psych ward with charges against her in connection with Amir’s disappearance (and most likely murder), this baby has a good chance of making past the age of 2 since Zinah probably won’t have control of it past it breaching the vaginal opening.
Which leads me to ask….how do you treat schizophrenia when the patient is pregnant? Is that safe?
Terrible terrible tragedy of a situation.
Valhall.
References:
http://www.midlandsconnect.com/news/story.aspx?id=712264#.TyKKDPnquGk
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/01/26/apnewsbreak-sc-lawyer-missing-boys-mom-pregnant/
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Related posts:
- Amir Jennings case: Zinah – the mocha-flavored version of Casey Anthony
- Amir Jennings: Is Hemphill Pride trying to make us hate him?
- Amir Jennings case: Friend reveals disturbing treatment of child
- Amir Jennings case: Cadaver dogs and search warrants
- Amir Jennings case: Warrants reference possible blood stains in car
