YADKINVILLE — In October 2010, a team of state psychiatrists interviewed Pazuzu Algarad, who at the time faced an accessory charge in the death of a man in Yadkin County.
A judge had ordered Algarad to undergo a mental-health evaluation to determine whether he could assist in his own defense.
During the interview with the psychiatrists, Algarad shook uncontrollably and admitted to drinking up to 18 beers a day, according the doctors’ report.
The doctors also noticed that Algarad had intentionally filed down his teeth, had poor hygiene and body odor, the report said.
“And he admitted that he bathed no more than once a year, and had not brushed his teeth in years,” the report said. “He felt such actions stripped … the body of its defenses in warding off infection and illness.”
The psychiatrists determined that Algarad suffered from schizophrenia, agoraphobia and alcoholism, but found him mentally competent to stand trial.
Schizophrenia is a personality disorder characterized by a distortion of emotional reality accompanied with delusions and hallucinations. Agoraphobia is an abnormal fear of being in open and public places.
“Whenever he is outside his house he feels markedly increased anxiety, leading at times to actual episodes of panic,” Dr. Charles Vance, a forensic psychiatrist at the former Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh, wrote in the doctors’ evaluation of Alagarad. “As a result of this anxiety he has tremendously limited his activities, essentially making himself a prisoner in his own home.”
Algarad, 35, and Amber Nicole Burch, 24, were charged Sunday with first-degree murder and accessory after the fact of first-degree murder after the skeletal remains of two unidentified people were found in the couple’s backyard at 2749 Knob Hill Drive.
A third person, Krystal Nicole Matlock, 28, of Winston-Salem has also been charged in the case.
In the 2010 case, Algarad was charged with being an accessory after the fact of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Joseph Emrick Chandler.
Chandler had been reported missing, and his body was found June 7, 2010 at Donnaha Park near the Yadkin River. He had died from a gunshot wound. Nicholas Pasquale Rizzi of Lewisville was charged with involuntary manslaughter in Chandler’s death.
Yadkin County deputies said Algarad told them that a Hispanic man named “Pete” was involved in the crime. Algarad was charged because he allowed Rizzi to stay at his Knob Hill Drive home.
Rizzi was convicted of involuntary manslaughter on March 31, 2011 and sentenced to one year and one month in prison.
Algarad pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact of involuntary manslaughter in 2012. A judge sentenced him to serve 10 months to 12 months in prison and placed him on probation for five years. He was on probation when the bodies were found in his yard.
In his pretrial interview in 2010, Algarad told the doctors that he was arrested because “they say I witnessed someone kill someone and I didn’t report it,” Vance wrote in his report.
Algarad also told the doctors that he often experienced panic symptoms when he left his home, Vance wrote.
Those feelings caused Algarad to suffer from depression. Vance said Algarad drank alcoholic beverages to cope with his other mental health issues.
The doctors said he was physically healthy and taking medications for his mental illnesses, including Paxil, Lamictal and Ativan.
Algarad said the drugs made him “feel like a zombie.”
The doctors also said Algarad came from a broken home and had never met his father. He told the doctors he had never been abused or neglected by his mother, who raised him.
The doctors said he had a complicated relationship with his mother. In 2010, Algarad’s mother said he choked her. She told police that she was afraid of her son, but didn’t want to press charges.
Algarad told the doctors that he dropped out of school as a ninth-grader because he said “that’s when the phobia around people started.” Algarad admitted he was a poor student, typically receiving flunking grades for his classwork.
He repeated the second- and ninth-grades, the report said. Algarad frequently fought with other students and admitted being verbally disrespectful to teachers.
He told the doctors he had schizophrenia “because I get paranoid that someone is out to get me.”
