According to the testimony, he also tended to regress into what was called a “world of his own making” typical of patients with Asperger’s, a mild form of autism. Odgren’s world was weaved from the fantasy stories of violence and crime he had read, particularly in Stephen King novels.
Odgren was also fixated on the number 19, a symbolic number from King’s “The Dark Tower” series that serves as a beacon of some type of event. Odgren was so obsessed with the number he would calculate it in his own daily life, in license plate numbers and in his birthday (9-1-90). It made him fear something was going to happen, three behavioral specialists said, testifying for the defense.
And on Jan. 19, Odgren was especially paranoid, the lawyers said – it was the 19th day of the month, the 19th day of the year. It was also the day the killing occurred.
Shapiro and the behavior specialists said that Odgren’s paranoia about the date pushed him into a trance, and that he had a “mental meltdown.” He later told one of the psychiatrists that – while he had only fragments of memories – he recalled two stab wounds, and the feeling of warm blood on his hands. He also told a counselor, after the killing, that he had nightmares of Alenson staring at him in the bathroom, with a knife in his chest.
But Dr. Alison Fife, a psychiatrist testifying for prosecutors, said that while Odgren was mentally ill, he was aware of his actions and could control them. She told jurors that Odgren would have mentioned his delusions after the attack, or his fear of the number 19 or The Crimson King, a villain in the King series, if he had just snapped out of a trance.