In a Marion County courtroom, grieving relatives observed as justice finally arrived for Caden Berry.
Eight years had passed since the 12-year-old was killed in the Keizer apartment he shared with his mother.
She was his killer.
Since then, Amy M. Robertson has spent most of her life committed to the Oregon State Hospital. She has been evaluated by a stream of psychiatrists.
And on May 7, a state judge concluded Robertson was insane when she strangled her son.
The finding means Robertson, 46, goes back to the state hospital. She was committed for the rest of her life to a state system that manages those who were profoundly mentally ill at the time of serious crimes.
The final stage in the criminal case took just 48 minutes before Circuit Court Judge Lindsay Partridge.
The judge, who has handled the matter nearly since the start, considered the relatives and others in the courtroom as he spoke his final words. Those seated in the audience included Robertson’s sole surviving son, himself abused at her hands and now 23.
The judge said he struggled with what to say.
“I am totally inadequate,” Partridge said. “I don’t have the words.”
Robertson’s family had already endured one loss before Caden’s death. An older brother died in 2011.
In Keizer, Robertson moved the family into a ground-floor apartment on North Garland Way.
In 2017, Caden attended Claggett Creek Middle School, described by one relative later as a “funny, sweet” boy who another relative said “loved the Oregon Ducks.”
On the night of Jan. 13, 2017, Robertson and her son watched movies.
At some point, Caden messaged a relative, asking if he could be picked up.
That wasn’t unusual. On occasion, Caden would reach out and ask to spend time away from his mother.
The relative responded – they’d be there in the morning.
Sometime around midnight, Robertson strangled her son in the living room.
Over the next 12 hours, she left his body there and later the following day, a neighbor encountered her. She was outside in the falling snow, wailing, saying she didn’t know what made her do it.
Keizer police were called just before 1 p.m. Officers encountered the mother, then found Caden.
At the Keizer Police Department, Det. Tim Lathrop, a detective since 2002, questioned her for five hours.
“She’s laughing one minute, very sad the next, crying,” Lathrop recalled. “She admitted that she strangled him.”
Three days later, a Marion County grand jury indicted Robertson for Caden’s murder. She subsequently also was charged with criminal mistreatment of another son between 2015 and 2016.
About five months after the murder, a doctor concluded Robertson suffered a delusional disorder. That meant, a judge ruled, that she wasn’t competent to participate understandably in her own defense. She was ordered to the Oregon State Hospital for treatment.
That began a series of court hearings in the ensuing years to assess Robertson’s condition. In 2020, Marion County prosecutors dismissed her charges. State law requires that action in circumstances where a defendant has been unable to participate in their defense for three years.
Prosecutors shifted to a civil process, establishing that Robertson was extremely dangerous and needed to be committed. A judge agreed and Robertson remained at the state hospital.
Doctors continued to evaluate her, and hearings to consider the findings were held from time to time. Evelyn Centeno and Shannon Sullivan, Marion County deputy district attorneys, handled the closing years of the case.. Centeno, a prosecutor for nine years, is considered an expert on insanity cases. Sullivan is a senior prosecutor with 18 years’ experience.
“We were very, very involved,” Centeno said in an interview.
Last December, Robertson was released from the state hospital but then lodged in the Marion County Jail. Her treatment positioned her to participate in her defense. Prosecutors filed charges again for the murder and the earlier mistreatment of a son.
Robertson was found able to aid in her defense, but now she asserted through her attorney she was insane at the time of the murder.
The prosecutors retained a psychiatrist to independently assess that claim. Centeno and Sullivan said they got back a report concluding that the mother was insane when she killed her boy.
That set in motion events leading to the recent court action. Robertson pleaded guilty to the mistreatment charges. She left it to Partridge to decide her guilt on the murder, based on facts that both prosecutors and her attorney agreed could be proven.
Partridge found her guilty except for insanity.
Four relatives then spoke, sharing their memories of Caden and addressing Robertson directly.
When they were done, Partridge asked the mother whether she had anything to say.
“No, your honor,” Robertson responded.
Partridge said in closing remarks that mental illness “played a huge role” in the murder.
“Maybe there’s something as a community that we missed that should have been provided that would have prevented that,” he said.
Lathrop didn’t attend the sentencing but he’s thought of the murder often.
“I wonder how it could have been different if she received some mental health treatment or some intervention,” Lathrop said. “Could his life have been saved?”
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