TORONTO — The 17-year-old girl convicted of first-degree murder in Stefanie Rengel’s stabbing death could develop a personality disorder resembling Glenn Close’s character in “Fatal Attraction,” according to a forensic psychiatrist’s report.
Dr. Philip Klassen of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health told the teen’s sentencing hearing Tuesday that the girl has the traits of borderline personality organization disorder.
He testified the girl, known only as M.T. because she was 15 when Rengel was slain, has issues with jealousy and anger and is more self-pitying than remorseful over the crime.
In his psychiatric assessment report filed with the court, Klassen said M.T. “has been described as organized and meticulous” and doesn’t show “the impulsivity that one frequently sees” in people with the disorder.
But if her current psychological state continues into adulthood, he wrote in the report, she could evolve into a person with a “highly functioning” borderline personality organization disorder.
“While I am by no means suggesting that the following is to be expected in (M.T.’s) case, in the psychiatric literature it’s felt that the archetypal individual with ’high functioning’ borderline personality organization may be found in the character played by Glenn Close in the movie ’Fatal Attraction’,” the report said.
In the 1987 movie, Close’s character stalks the family of her married lover, boils the family’s pet rabbit on the stove and tries to stab the man’s wife with a knife.
Rengel was stabbed six times and left to die in a snowbank outside her home on New Year’s Day 2008.
The Crown successfully argued that M.T., driven by jealousy, used sexual blackmail against her boyfriend, known only as D.B., to push him into killing the 14-year old. D.B., now 19, appears for a sentencing hearing in September after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in April.
Klassen interviewed M.T. for more than five hours on April 27 and May 7 at the request of the judge and told the court that there has been “no spontaneous expression of remorse” for Rengel’s death.
The teen struggles with personal and interpersonal control issues, said Klassen, and “she has not gone head on” to face the more distasteful aspects of her behaviour. He said it’s been difficult for M.T. to take responsibility for the murder.
“She’s a long way away from saying why she wanted Miss Rengel dead,” said Klassen.
M.T. displayed anger, jealousy and manipulation with three of her boyfriends, including D.B. and her future relationships would need to be monitored, he said, but added he didn’t know how long that monitoring should continue.
The report also said M.T. admitted she wanted an ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend and an undisclosed number of other girls dead, and admitted becoming enraged by jealousy.
Calling her a “unique offender,” he said it’s difficult to speak to her future risk.