To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

RALEIGH – A psychiatrist in the Abdullah Shareef trial said Tuesday he believes the defendant needs to be institutionalized for the rest of his life.

Shareef is accused of running over five people between Fayetteville and Fuquay Varina in 2004, killing one of them. Shareef has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Psychiatrist George Corvin told a jury Tuesday that Shareef can be dangerous when unmedicated and if it were up to him, he'd never release the defendant from the hospital.

"If I were directing his care, he would take medications every day until his death," Corvin said.

Corvin said Shareef suffers from schizophrenia, a mental illness that can be treated, but not cured.

"Barring some very significant medical breakthrough that isn't really anticipated in my practice lifetime, no matter how good the medicines are, a cure implies you'd be well without treatment – and no such treatment exists," Shareef said.

Chief District Court Judge Elizabeth Keever also testified Tuesday. She presided over Shareef's first appearance in 2004. She said she remembers the defendant was, as she put it, scary.

"His eyes were very big, unfocused, unblinking," Keever said.

Keever said Shareef was unresponsive at his first appearance, prompting her to send him to Dorothea Dix Hospital.