CENTENNIAL — Ari Liggett bought pounds of cyanide as he became increasingly convinced his mother had a mental health disease that was never diagnosed.
Prosecutors claim the purchase was the first step in Liggett’s obsessive, years-long plan to kill his mother. Defense attorneys say it was just one of several delusions that detached the young man from the world around him.
Now it is up to an Arapahoe County jury to answer the question: Was Liggett’s mental illness so severe it prevented him from understanding reality when he allegedly poisoned and dismembered his mother?
Closing arguments in the murder trial against Ari Liggett came a week early on Friday, and attorneys handed the case over to jurors. Liggett faces one count of first-degree murder after deliberation in the death of his 56-year-old mother, Beverly, in October 2012.
Liggett pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in July. Prosecutors acknowledged Liggett’s long history of mental health issues but argued Liggett maintained a “method to his madness” as he spent years buying chemicals and practicing his mixtures in the Centennial home he shared with his mother.
“Mental illness does not equal insanity,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Brian Sugioka told jurors.
Sugioka said Liggett spent years harboring a deep hatred for his mother, blaming her for his mental health issues. Liggett poisoned his mother with a cyanide mixture on Oct. 14 or 15, 2012, and spent the next 24 hours getting rid of the evidence — dismembering her body in the bathtub before placing her remains in plastic tubs full of olive oil, scrubbing down the house and running a handsaw through a cycle in the dishwasher.
Officers arrested Liggett on Oct. 17, 2012, after the then-24-year-old was spotted driving his mother’s Honda CR-V. His mother’s remains were found in two plastic storage bins in the back of the vehicle.
Liggett repeatedly told officers they could not prove he was sane, that he believed people were demons and that he didn’t know the difference between right and wrong.
But Sugioka said Liggett’s actions and comments were calculated and manipulative. A court-ordered mental health evaluation also found Liggett sane.
“His mental illness is used by him. To his advantage. When he wants it,” Sugioka said.
But public defender Natalie Girard — who repeatedly described Liggett’s actions as “completely psychotic” — said Liggett’s mental illness was too severe for him to plan his mother’s murder. Girard also said the examiner who completed Liggett’s sanity evaluation “cherry-picked” documents and did not consider Liggett’s entire mental health history.
“His mental illness is so pervasive it impacts his perceptions of reality, and that’s insanity,” Girard said.
Liggett, Girard said, was 5 years old when he was first diagnosed with a developmental disorder. In the years that followed, he was diagnosed with several mental health illnesses and hospitalized five times.
Jordan Steffen: 303-954-1794, jsteffen@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jsteffendp
