Judge Christie Sell watches video showing the murder of a Moccasin Bend Psychiatric Hospital patient
Detective Chris Blackwell testified Tuesday that Leviticus Avery "reached and grabbed another patient" prior to using a chair leg he had broken off to kill 38-year-old Kevin Green last October.
The victim was struck so hard that it moved his brain 19mm and caused bleeding in the brain. He never regained consciousness.
General Sessions Court Judge Christie Sell bound a first-degree murder charge to the Grand Jury against the 37-year-old Avery after seeing video of the incident.
Detective Blackwell said no Moccasin Bend staff was in the immediate vicinity of where the incident took place in a common area near a nursing station.
He said of Moccasin Bend staff, "They allow them to act out their aggressions."
The detective said Avery was apparently agitated because he wanted to leave the psychiatric facility where he had been taken for an evaluation.
"He kept saying he wanted to go back to the jail," he said.
The video shows the victim approaching Avery, who raised the chair leg and brought it down on the right side of his head.