Testimony undermines mental illness claim by Munhall homicide defendant

During opening statements on Monday, Dorian Abel’s attorney asked a jury to find his client guilty but mentally ill of shooting his girlfriend 17 times in her Munhall home.

But on Thursday, Abel’s own expert psychiatrist testified that the defendant has no mental illness of any kind.

No diagnosis. No disorder.

Still, Dr. Robert Wettstein told the jury, he believed Abel’s capacity to form intent to kill was “diminished” when he shot Miranda Grimm-Gilarski.

“He told me he kept his eyes closed the whole time — 17 shots,” Wettstein said. “He didn’t want to watch.”

The doctor characterized it in his testimony as “a kind of avoidance.

“He was not thinking clearly.”

The jury is expected to begin deliberations on Friday.

On the afternoon of Nov. 17, 2018, police said that Abel went to the 1400 block of Louise Street where he fatally shot Grimm-Gilarski, his girlfriend of several months.

She was 19 and had been home that day babysitting her younger sibling.

Shortly after the shooting, Abel went to the Munhall Police Department and turned himself in.

He was charged with criminal homicide, burglary and carrying a firearm without a license.

His case remained pending for nearly seven years before the jury trial began on Monday before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Thomas E. Flaherty.

The prosecution, which is seeking a conviction for first-degree murder, which carries a mandatory penalty of life without parole, rested its case on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the defense called three witnesses: Wettstein, Abel’s father, and the defendant himself.

‘You hate me’

Thomas Abel testified that he and his son had a fight the day of the shooting after a citation arrived in the mail.

Although the notice listed his father’s name, it appeared to be about a physical altercation Dorian Abel had a few weeks earlier with his girlfriend.

According to testimony in the case, on Oct. 30, 2018, she and Abel got into an argument at her home, and she spat on him.

He responded by striking her in the face and choking her.

Although Grimm-Gilarski told Abel she would not press charges, the citation came to his house.

Thomas Abel became angry and called his son

“‘We’re going to have to re-evaluate the status of our relationship,’ and that set him off,” Thomas Abel testified. “He thought he lost his father.”

Thomas Abel then hung up on his son.

“If I could do it all over again, I never would have made that phone call and said what I said,” the father testified. “It’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”

Dorian Abel became upset, texting Grimm-Gilarski, “You hate me, and my dad hates me.”

The defendant testifies

During an hour on the stand Thursday afternoon, Dorian Abel admitted to shooting the woman he said he loved. But, he continued, that wasn’t his intent that afternoon.

Instead, Abel told the jury, he initially planned to go to the victim’s house and kill himself.

“I no longer wanted to be alive,” Abel testified. “I was going to shoot myself in the head.”

“I planned to tell her, ‘love you forever and always, baby, don’t forget that,’” he said.

In one of the text messages he sent to Grimm-Gilarski, he wrote: “My life is over.”

But as he contemplated his actions, Abel continued, he became conflicted because his father had always told him suicide was a selfish act.

When he got to his girlfriend’s home, he said, “I kicked the door in and began firing.

“I can’t tell you how many times I fired the gun,” Abel told the jury. “I closed my eyes at various points.”

He left. Soon after, he said, he realized what he’d done.

Abel, who rarely looked up in his thick glasses during his testimony, told the jury he drove to the police station and turned himself in.

“Why did you do this?” asked defense attorney Patrick Thomassey. “Were you thinking straight?”

“No, sir,” Abel answered. “I guess because I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t live with the reality of losing my father.”

But on cross-examination by Assistant District Attorney Alexa Roberts, Abel admitted he was mad at Grimm-Gilarski that day because he believed she’d pressed charges against him.

He’d sent her an expletive-filled message, writing, “I hate you,” just 30 minutes before the shooting.

“I was irritated,” Abel answered. “It’s my fault for what happened. Had I just simply walked away…”

But Roberts pressed, “You still think all of this happened because of her? Because of something she did, right?”

“Yes.”

Diagnosed with malingering

Earlier in the day, Wettstein told the jury that he first evaluated Abel in 2022 and again this year. He spent about five hours total with him.

During their 2022 interview, Wettstein said Abel told him he couldn’t remember anything about the crime.

“Did you believe him?” Thomassey asked.

“Not necessarily,” Wettstein answered. “Some defendants don’t remember. But also, some defendants lie.”

When Wettstein returned to interview Abel in March, the defendant’s story changed.

“He told me he had been lying to me in 2022,” the doctor said. “He told me in 2025 he did remember.”

Abel explained to Wettstein that he was “deathly afraid of losing his dad.”

“He became terrified that his father was going to disown him, send him away, abandon him basically,” Wettstein continued.

That fear, Wettstein explained, combined with a childhood history of abuse by Abel’s mother, contributed to his actions that day.

“His plan was to go to Miranda’s house and kill himself,” Wettstein said Abel told him.

Instead, he continued, Abel shot Grimm-Gilarski.

Wettstein told the jury that Abel wasn’t delusional at the time, but that his ability to contemplate a different solution was impaired.

“I do not label him as having a mental disorder at all,” Wettstein said.

But on cross-examination, Wettstein testified that while Abel was at the Allegheny County Jail after his arrest, he pretended to be have psychiatric symptoms, including hearing voices and having hallucinations.

Based on those symptoms, Abel was transported to Torrance State Hospital for treatment.

There, Wettstein said, doctors determined Abel was lying.

The only diagnosis he received upon discharge, Wettstein told the jury, was malingering.

“Is being an angry person a mental disorder?” Roberts asked.

“No,” Wettstein answered.