A 50-year-old Rhode Island man accused of fatally shooting his mother in her hospital bed at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center last year has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to first- and second-degree murder.
Travis Frink of Warwick, R.I., will be committed for five years to the secure psychiatric unit at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord, according to the terms of a plea agreement announced in Grafton Superior Court during his plea hearing Tuesday.
He will be evaluated at the end of the five-year term, at which time he could be moved to a less-secure facility like the New Hampshire Hospital. If he remains committed, he will be re-evaluated every five years, Associate Attorney General Jeffrey Strezlin said.
The state charged Frink with murdering his 70-year-old mother, Pamela Ferriere of Groton on Sept. 12, 2017, during an incident that sent the hospital into lockdown and forced an evaluation of emergency procedures.
As part of the plea agreement reached Tuesday, Frink admitted to the murder. He couldn’t, however, concede to the mental status that must be present to be found guilty of the felony-level crimes.
“Do you acknowledge that you committed the acts that are alleged in each indictment?” Judge Peter Bornstein asked Frink in the courtroom.
“I do, your honor,” he replied in a low voice.
Frink answered several questions in court and exhibited no obvious signs of mental illness.
If he is taking his medications, which he said he was on Tuesday, it is common for Frink to behave normally, his family members said. He wasn’t on his medications on the day he shot his mother, he told police.
No family members appeared in court Tuesday, but Strezlin read aloud several victim impact statements from them.
Frink has two sides, wrote Russell Ide, who is Frink’s former father-in-law. When he is taking his medication, he may seem “docile” and “harmless,” Ide said.
“I assure you he is not,” said Ide, calling Frink a “cold, calculating, insane person” who has put his three children “though hell.”
“How do you reconcile the fact he planned, drove three hours and premeditatedly shot his defenseless mother, yet a year later is ready to be found not guilty by reason of insanity?” Ide wrote. “I truly fear we will see a repeat of his actions.”
One of Frink’s minor sons asked the judge to show no mercy on his father. The son described abuse, both when Frink was on and off his medications.
“I believe that my father should not be released from prison,” the son wrote. “He is not a mentally-stable person. … I never want to encounter him again.”
In a joint statement with her husband, Frink’s former mother-in-law, Dianne Stebbins, urged the court to be cautious when determining whether to release Frink or not.
“It is our fear that Travis Frink Sr., being a very intelligent and manipulative man, would appear to be ready for release when he is not ready,” the Stebbins wrote.