BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Jason Eaton\u2019s defense team called his sister and a forensic psychiatrist to the stand Wednesday, the third day of his attempted murder trial in Burlington. Both witnesses spoke to his mental state at the time of the 2023 shootings of three Palestinian American students.<\/p>\n
Eaton has essentially admitted to shooting the victims, so the case does not hinge on whether he did it, but on whether he should be held criminally responsible.<\/p>\n
The state rested its case Tuesday, and Wednesday, the defense began presenting witnesses to support an insanity defense.<\/p>\n
On the stand Wednesday morning was Eaton\u2019s younger sister, Amy Rubright.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe talked about demons and they don\u2019t necessarily come looking like angels or demons. They could look like a regular person, like they could be a friend of mine and I wouldn\u2019t know,\u201d Rubright said.<\/p>\n
She described what she called a shocking phone call with her brother two years before the shooting, saying he was not acting like himself when he relayed messages he received from an unknown source.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had gotten a message that… the world was changing and that we are light bearers,\u201d Rubright said.<\/p>\n
In cross-examination, the state questioned the relationship between the siblings and a lack of communication leading up to the shooting, after Rubright kicked him out of her house following a disagreement in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the remaining months of 2022 you had no contact with him?\u201d Chittenden County Deputy State\u2019s Attorney Sally Adams asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Rubright said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo phone calls?\u201d Adams asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Rubright said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo in-person contact?\u201d Adams asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Rubright said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd all of 2023 up until Nov. 25, 2023, no phone calls?\u201d Adams asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Rubright said.<\/p>\n
The defense\u2019s main witness, Dr. Fabian Saleh, spent the rest of the day on the stand. The forensic psychiatrist testified about the messages Eaton claims he received from the CIA and the Israeli government on the day of the shooting and in the period leading up to it, telling him to take action.<\/p>\n
Eaton also believed he was told to watch over a Jewish gathering space he could see from his apartment window.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he saw the three victims, and through the messages that he received, be it through the FM radio and the voice of God, he was instructed and urged to go and kill them,\u201d Saleh said.<\/p>\n
The defense\u2019s expert backed up their claim that Eaton should not be held criminally responsible for the shooting, pointing to Eaton\u2019s delusions that he felt he had to carry out a government operative.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is operating under the belief, the delusional belief, that this is an authorized, legalized undertaking. So he doesn\u2019t think, \u2018I\u2019m doing something criminal or wrong,\u2019\u201d Saleh said.<\/p>\n
The state pushed back on the defense\u2019s expert, saying that even days before the shooting, doctors had no notes of any delusions, and none recently.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn any conversations that you\u2019ve had with Mr. Eaton, he hasn\u2019t described any new delusions that are outside of what he is here for today,\u201d Chittenden County State\u2019s Attorney Sarah George said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that\u2019s what the delusional disorder is about,\u201d Saleh said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout one delusion?\u201d George asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not one delusion,\u201d Saleh said.<\/p>\n
The defense also played recordings of Eaton five days after the shooting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how much of this is in my head, and how much of this is real,\u201d Eaton said in the recording.<\/p>\n
The state was still cross-examining the defense\u2019s expert as of Wednesday afternoon, trying to poke holes in his testimony.<\/p>\n
Proceedings are set to resume Thursday morning, with the state continuing its cross-examination of the defense\u2019s expert.<\/p>\n
At least one more witness or expert is expected from the defense, after which the state is expected to bring its own mental health expert to the stand.<\/p>\n
Once both sides are satisfied with the testimony provided, the jury may begin deliberating.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WCAX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Jason Eaton\u2019s defense team called his sister and a forensic psychiatrist to the stand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[195684,1343,924,140,254997,102,115328,82252,1906,6623,50,60068,28462,5634,29849,56,54,55,2256,254998,75939],"class_list":["post-773113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-burlington","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-defense","tag-eaton","tag-health","tag-insanity","tag-jason","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-news","tag-palestinian","tag-shooting","tag-students","tag-trial","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-vermont","tag-vt","tag-wcax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}