Chesco judge accepts teen’s plea of ‘guilty but mentally ill’ for 2017 attack on 72-year-old woman

Two years ago, a 17-year-old escapee from a residential program in Chester County attacked and choked a 72-year-old woman in her East Brandywine Township home and locked her inside a storage closet, leaving her without food or water. “You’ll be with Jesus soon,” he told her before stealing her credit cards and cell phone and driving off in her silver Fiat 500, authorities have said.

Her daughter-in-law found her malnourished and dehydrated four days later, and the woman, who lived alone in her Creek Road home, survived.

On Tuesday, Chester County President Judge Jacqueline C. Cody accepted Khemmathat Fariss’ “guilty but mentally ill” plea to attempted first-degree murder, robbery, strangulation, and related offenses.

Fariss, now 19, had entered his plea to all charges in a West Chester courtroom Jan. 31, but it was contested by the Chester County District Attorney’s Office. The judge issued her one-page ruling accepting the plea Tuesday after a nearly all-day mental-illness assessment hearing in February and after reading lawyers’ briefs on the matter.

Sentencing was set for May 2.

Fariss had escaped from the Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health Brandywine campus in Wallace Township early Feb. 22, 2017, then walked nearly two miles to the woman’s home.

After she returned from work, he covered her head with a cloth shopping bag, secured it with duct tape around her neck, and bound her arms and legs, prosecutors have said. He then threw her into the small, ground-level storage closet beneath stairs in her home, locking the door.

The Inquirer is withholding the victim’s identity at the request of the Chester County District Attorney’s Office.

At the Feb. 5 mental-assessment hearing, defense attorney Robert Keller had called forensic psychiatrist Robin Altman to testify about Fariss’ troubled upbringing in his native Thailand.

After being abandoned by his mother at age 3, he was put in an orphanage where he was abused. When he was 7, he was adopted by an American woman. Although family members were supportive and he went to live with them in Media, Delaware County, Fariss was traumatized by moving to a new place, where he didn’t speak English and was bullied in school.

In October 2016, Fariss burglarized two homes, for which he was arrested as a juvenile and placed in a detention center.

Later, because of his increasing “aberrant behavior,” Keller said in a February interview, Fariss was sent to live at Devereux Brandywine. Devereux authorities have said that boys are referred to the campus by a psychiatrist and with the consent of a parent or guardian, and that their stays are voluntary.

Devereux programs differ from residential programs in which juveniles are ordered by judges to spend time after committing crimes.

Keller contended in his brief that Fariss understood that attacking the 72-year-old woman was wrong, but because of his mental-health issues, “he was unable to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.” Prosecutors contended that Fariss was in full control of his actions.

Keller said in the interview that the “guilty but mentally ill” plea expands a court’s options in sentencing.

“Instead of housing them in an institution and locking the key, it requires the court and the state penal system to make sure that the defendant is receiving mental-health treatment” while in state prison, he said.