A nationally renowned psychiatrist who has evaluated some of the most notorious criminals of the 20th and 21st centuries believes that the man who killed 11 people at a Squirrel Hill synagogue does not have any diagnosable mental illness, including schizophrenia.

What Robert Bowers does have, though, that expert said, is schizoid personality disorder.

Dr. Park Dietz, a psychiatrist, made the distinction for the jury on the witness stand Thursday: Schizophrenia is a pathological disease, while a personality disorder can be characterized as a “maladaptive pattern of relating to the world.”

Dietz, called as the government’s key rebuttal witness to five days of mental health testimony for the defense, said he does not believe Bowers has delusions, a key symptom of schizophrenia.

Instead, the defendant’s extreme hatred of Jews is based on beliefs that they are leading an effort to eliminate the white race. Those beliefs, Dietz said, stem from the subculture Bowers immersed himself in online.

His beliefs, Dietz said, “are not personal to him. He sees them as major political issues worldwide.

“He wants to stand up for his race.”

A jury on June 16 convicted Bowers, 50, of Baldwin, of all 63 federal counts against him in the Oct. 27, 2018, attack at the synagogue in Squirrel Hill that housed Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha, Dor Hadash and New Light congregations.

Those killed included Rose Mallinger, 97; Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; brothers David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59; Dan Stein, 71; Irving Younger, 69; Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; Joyce Fienberg, 75; Melvin Wax, 87; and Richard Gottfried, 65.

The government is seeking the death penalty, and the case is now in the eligibility phase, during which the jury must decide whether Bowers is eligible for the death penalty. To do so, they must find unanimously that the defendant had the requisite intent to kill.

The defense argues that their client has schizophrenia, epilepsy and other brain dysfunction that made it impossible for him to form that intent.

They called their own experts in neurology, forensic psychology and brain imaging who testified that an MRI, PET scan and EEG show evidence of both diseases, as well as structural abnormalities in Bowers’ brain.

The defense rested on Wednesday.

The government began its rebuttal testimony, first calling Dr. Ryan Darby, a behavioral neurologist from Vanderbilt. Darby, who was contracted to do his evaluation by Dietz, testified that Bowers does not have schizophrenia or epilepsy.

On Thursday, Dietz, took the stand, spending about three hours testifying. He will return still on direct examination on Monday.

Friday is an off day in the proceedings.

Dietz’s consulting career kicked off in 1981 when he was asked by the federal government to examine John Hinckley Jr. who attempted to assassinate former President Ronald Reagan. Since then, he said, he has performed hundreds of forensic evaluations and has worked on cases involving Jeffrey Dahmer, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dylann Roof. He was asked to evaluate Ted Kaczynski but never got the chance because he ended up taking a plea.

In at least two of those cases — Tsarnaev and Kaczsynki — Judy Clarke, who represents Bowers, was one of the defense attorneys.

In the Bowers’ case, Dietz said he was retained by the U.S. Attorney’s office in December of 2018. He did not get to interview the defendant until this year.

Over three days in May, Dietz spoke with Bowers for nearly 15 hours at the Butler County Prison. He wrote a 200-page report, referencing extensive records he reviewed including Bowers’ family and medical history, education, social services and employment records, law enforcement files from the attack and records from the prison.

All of those things, Dietz told the jury, led him to his conclusions that the defendant had the capacity to plan the crime and form the intent to kill.

When Dietz first met Bowers, the psychiatrist testified, the defendant refused to shake his hand because, he said, “you’re with the other side.”

Still, the witness continued, Bowers was calm and responsive in their interview. They formed a good rapport.

“About almost everything, he was normal,” Dietz said. “I observed a smart, articulate man who’d done his homework.”

He said Bowers attempted to expand his knowledge through research and has a great mind for detail.

“He cited evidence to support propositions,” Dietz said.

The defendant wanted to talk about his crime and was happy to share his belief system that led to it, he said.

“‘I’m being held a POW in a war,’” Bowers told him. “There is a war on white people orchestrated by the Jew, and I’m a soldier in that war.”

The defendant also told Dietz that the Butler County Prison “is the most plush POW camp ever.”

The witness said that Bowers got angry repeatedly when discussing four topics — “anything about his mother, anything about Jews, anything about immigration, and the design of gas cans and how they had been changed.”

In evaluating Bowers, Dietz said he agreed with defense experts on several points, including that the defendant had a “challenging childhood,” to which he responded with anger and depression, as well as the fact he lived a socially isolated existence as an adult who did not live up to his potential.

He also agreed that Bowers has a major preoccupation in his hatred of Jews and the war he believes he’s in, characterizing them as “strongly held, extreme beliefs” that he holds with great conviction.

Despite what most would consider the irrationality of those beliefs, Dietz said they are not delusional.

Instead, he said they are beliefs held by a subculture, and that Bowers learned about all of it online.

“Not a single one of his extreme beliefs originated from him,” Dietz said. “His extreme beliefs all originate from the Bible, antisemitic tropes, propaganda, hate speech, white supremacist and white separatist rhetoric, and his observations of the world.

“They do not spring from mental disease. None of his extreme belief is original to him,” Dietz continued. “The defendant’s beliefs must be evaluated in context of the subculture in which he increasingly immersed himself in the months preceding the offense with which he stands charged.”

He compared those strongly held feelings to other widely accepted beliefs, including that by Catholics that the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus; as well as the existence of UFOs and Bigfoot.

“There are many, many examples of this,” Dietz said.

Dietz told the jury he also found it significant that Bowers was not diagnosed with schizophrenia until after the attack; that he denied having delusions and hallucinations, and that he has not taken any medications since the diagnosis.

Dietz also told the jury, contrary to what some defense experts said, that the defendant was able to think abstractly and used analogies and metaphors — which is often impaired in schizophrenia.

The witness, who has done research in white supremacy and antisemitism, said he had no trouble understanding Bowers.

“I was able to follow the train of thought for absolutely everything he said to me,” Dietz said. “He was delighted I knew about some of this and that I knew about firearms.”

In finding that Bowers has schizoid personality disorder, Dietz said the defendant fits at least four of the criteria: almost always choosing solitary activities; lacking close friends or confidantes; appearing indifferent to the praise or criticism of others, and showing emotional coldness, detachment or flattened affect.

In personality disorders, Dietz said the characteristics can last for decades.

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