Murder suspect’s mental health struggles were escalating in days, weeks prior to alleged attack

FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) - A verdict is one day closer as both prosecutors and the defense have rested their cases in the trial of 23-year-old Arthur Kollie who’s accused of the fatal attack on 14-year-old Jupiter Paulsen last summer in the Party City parking lot.

In the days and weeks leading up to the brutal beating of Paulsen, counselors and family members of Kollie say they knew he was struggling with his mental health.

“I just noticed him walking through and talking to somebody who was not there. Auditory hallucinations maybe that he was responding to. Nothing super out of character, aggressive or out of character for him,” Anastasia Glasser, a former staff member at Fraser Ltd. said.

Kollie’s sister, Princess Harris was not to be recorded on video due to safety concerns, but she told jurors that Kollie had been talking to himself and dealing with marijuana and alcohol abuse for about two years prior to the incident. She added Kollie’s mental health was getting worse in the weeks before his arrest.

“I could recall one time I went to his apartment and he was seeing things. He told me that someone was parked outside his window, but there wasn’t any cars. There wasn’t anybody there,” Harris said.

Kollie told detectives he had smoked meth the day before the attack and that he sometimes talks to himself, both which he claims makes him not remember things. And when officers later left the interview room, cameras caught Kollie talking and singing to himself.

“From the woods,” he says as he looks down at cuts on his hands. “Walking in the woods! Walking in the woods! Walking in the woods!”

Another counselor testified Kollie disclosed to her that he had ‘problems with his anger,’ and Kollie was given a preliminary diagnosis of unspecified psychosis shortly before the attack. He was ordered to be evaluated further by experts, but that didn’t happen in time.

“Do you think there was actually someone trying to kill him or do you think that was something he was just seeing?” Eric Baumann asked Harris.

“There was nobody trying to kill him it was just something he was seeing,” Harris said.

Kollie did not take the stand Wednesday and will spend yet another night in the Cass County Jail awaiting his fate 12 jurors will likely start deliberations on Thursday. Closing arguments will begin Thursday morning at 9 a.m.

Copyright 2022 KVLY. All rights reserved.