Confessed cannibal Albert Fentress’ court bid to win freedom after two decades inside state mental hospitals began yesterday with a prosecutor warning that Fentress could become a killer again.
Prosecutor Wayne Witherwax told a jury in Riverhead, L.I., that the soft-spoken, distinguished-looking Fentress suffers from a mental illness that is, like cancer, “in remission.
“You’re not cured, it’s being held at bay,” he said.
But defense lawyer Kim Darrow said Fentress is “not mentally ill and he’s not a threat to the community.”
In 1979, Fentress, a junior-high-school history teacher who was the butt of teen-age pranks, snapped, said state Assistant Attorney General Laurie Gatto, Witherwax’s co-counsel.
Fentress lured 17-year-old Paul Masters to the basement of Fentress’ Poughkeepsie home and tied him up.
“As Paul Masters pleaded for his life,” said Witherwax, Fentress shot the youth. Fentress then castrated the youth, “took the organs upstairs, cooked them and ate them,” he said.
He said Fentress’ “reactive psychosis” that caused the violence was currently in check but that he still suffers from a narcissistic-personality disorder and is obsessive-compulsive.
Darrow said Fentress, “in his psychotic state … killed Paul Masters in a very cruel fashion” but was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
The trial will feature psychiatrists from Pilgrim State Hospital, who are expected to say he should be set free.