Crime & Safety

Update: Psychologist Details Dela Rosa's History of Mental Illness

Dela Rosa drove car off Skyline Drive two months before she threw her granddaughter from footbridge.

Update, 6:34 p.m.

Dr. Jeanne Marquis, Carmela dela Rosa's former psychologist, testified on the witness stand for hours on Monday, detailing medical records kept on her patient between 2001 and mid-November 2010.

Marquis testified that she diagnosed dela Rosa with major depressive disorder in 2001, but that the depression became severely worse in mid-2010.

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"One of the things that was becoming apparent in the fall was her depression was qualitatively and quantitatively different," Marquis said. "She had never been that severely depressed."

Marquis explained that dela Rosa's suicide attempts "told me she was...spiraling down. This was behavior she had never displayed before."

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Dela Rosa had trouble making and keeping appointments, Marquis said. She also had trouble communicating during the therapy sessions. She expressed anxiety about her family's financial trouble, too.

"She sounded depressed and she sounded stressed and...she sounded hopeless," Marquis said. "It appeared to be a vicious cycle of her not getting out of this episode...She appeared so shut down."

During a therapy session on Nov. 2, Marquis testified that dela Rosa was unable to fill out a simple self-evaluation form.

"I handed it to her, she wrote her name on the form...she basically indicated she just couldn't fill it out," Marquis said. "She was very mentally and emotionally shut down. This was significantly different than her behavior in any previous therapy session."

Marquis was scheduled to meet with dela Rosa for another session on Nov. 9, but the patient did not show up. They never met again. 

Dela Rosa's defense team will call its last witness when the trial resumes on Tuesday afternoon.

Update, 1:29 p.m.

Carmela dela Rosa's long-time pyschologist took the witness stand on Monday afternoon. Dr. Jeanne Marquis diagnosed the defendant with major depressive disorder in February 2001.

Marquis helped dela Rosa work through her depression for several months that year and then did not see her again until late 2005, when symptoms returned.

Marquis' testimony will continue when court resumes after lunch.

Original Post:

Two months before Carmela dela Rosa threw her granddaughter from a pedestrian footbridge at Tysons Corner Center, she drove her minivan off the Skyline Drive in a suicide attempt, witnesses testified Monday.

Dela Rosa has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to killing Angelyn Ogdoc. Monday marks the fifth day of her murder trial, and the jury is expected to begin deliberations on Wednesday afternoon.

On a foggy and rainy Sept. 27, 2010, dela Rosa drove off the road, in the Shenandoah National Park about 12 miles outside Front Royal, Va.

The minivan was totaled in the crash but dela Rosa escaped only with a cut to her ankle. She climbed up the steep embankment and hitchhiked her way to the Thornton Gap entrance, about 20 miles away from her car.

At the Thornton Gap entrance, National Park Ranger Dixon Freeland picked up dela Rosa and drove her to the hospital to be treated for her injury.

During the car ride, dela Rosa told Freeland that the crash was an accident that occurred when she tried to retrieve something from the car's console and lost control of the vehicle.

Ranger Stuart Curtin said he visited the crash site and found a short suicide note crumpled up on the road near the crash. It read, "I am sorry, so sorry for all the wrong I have done. From the bottom of my heart, I love all of you."

During the 25-minute car ride to the hospital, Freeland said dela Rosa admitted it was a suicide attempt.

This was one of four suicide attempts dela Rosa carried out during the fall of 2010. Angelyn was killed Nov. 29, 2010.

Check Patch throughout the day for updates to this story.


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