By ARDESHIR TABRIZIAN of Salem Reporter
The Marion County District Attorney’s Office has again charged a Keizer woman with murdering her 12-year-old son four years after a state judge dropped the same charges due to the woman’s mental illness.
Amy M. Robertson, 46, has spent seven years at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem since she was first accused of killing her son, Caden D. Berry, in January 2017.
Most of the state hospital’s patients are receiving treatment to help them understand criminal charges they are facing so they can eventually be deemed competent to stand trial. But the judge who dismissed Robertson’s case ordered that she stay there as an “extremely dangerous” person – a rare civil proceeding where people are committed who have no criminal charges.
Prosecutors charged Robertson on Thursday in Marion County Circuit Court with first-degree murder, second-degree murder and two counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment.
The charges accuse Robertson of killing Berry intentionally, recklessly and “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.” They also allege that she previously “engaged in a pattern and practice of assault and torture” of her other son. Salem Reporter does not identify survivors of child abuse.
Caden Berry was born in Newport on June 16, 2004.
He was the youngest of three and “spent most of his life having fun in Keizer,” according to his obituary. He made many friends at Claggett Creek Middle School, where he was a seventh grader at the time of his death on Jan. 13, 2017.
Court records indicate he was strangled.
“He enjoyed spending time with the people who he loved and who loved him in return. He liked watching football, playing video games and catching all of the Pokemon. Caden always loved making people laugh and loved sharing that laughter with his friends,” the obituary said.
The Keizer Police Department at the time arrested Robertson, then 38, at their home at the Riverwood Apartments on North Garland Way.
A Marion County grand jury originally indicted her on charges including aggravated murder, punishable by death under Oregon law. But the state has had a moratorium on executions since 2011.
Her charges were amended in 2019 to the same ones she now faces for a second time.
Robertson was brought back to the Marion County Jail on Wednesday for the first time in seven years to face the re-filed charges. Wearing a yellow sweatshirt, she stood behind a window in the circuit court annex attached to the jail during her arraignment hearing Thursday afternoon.
The last time Robertson was in jail, “she was just not in good shape” due to her mental illness, according to her defense attorney, Steven Gorham.
At the state hospital, Robertson had been taking her medication and was doing “relatively well,” Gorham said at the hearing Thursday.
He said state hospital officials recently said they were willing to recommend that Robertson be moved to a secure residential treatment facility.
Her psychologist also reported on Wednesday that she was showing no more signs of mental illness, Marion County Deputy District Attorney Evelyn Centeno said at the hearing.
Prosecutors took that to mean that Robertson is now able to assist in her defense.
A woman who described herself as Robertson’s sister-in-law said at the hearing that her family wanted Robertson to face the charges and not return to the state hospital. She said she did not believe that Robertson is “crazy.”
“We’ve waited almost eight years now. We’re done playing games,” the woman said.
Gorham said in court that Robertson was ready to plead guilty except for insanity. “We would like her back at the state hospital today because otherwise, she’ll decompensate” in jail, he said.
Marion County Circuit Court Pro Tem Judge Michael Wu, who presided over the arraignment, said he would not accept any form of guilty plea at that time because he wanted the matter handled by the judge who oversaw Robertson’s earlier case, Lindsay Partridge.
Wu scheduled her next court proceeding for Dec. 18. Meantime, he ordered that Robertson remain in jail without bail because there is a “strong presumption” that she is guilty.