Suit settled against psychiatric hospital

PITTSBURGH — A couple who claims their son should have been committed the day before he stabbed his 11-year-old twin half brothers, killing one, have settled their lawsuit against a Pittsburgh psychiatric hospital.

An Allegheny County jury was seated to hear the lawsuit before the settlement was announced Tuesday between the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Western Psychiatric and Clinic and Troy and Tiffany Hill, of Penn Hills.

Their son 26-year-old Troy Hill Jr. has yet to be found mentally competent to stand trial on charges he stabbed Tyrel and Tyron Hill, killing Tyron, on Aug. 28, 2007.

The hospital’s attorney, John Conti, says he was “very grateful” to settle the case. The Hills’ attorney, Neil Rosen, says, “The wrong has been righted.”

Appeal in cyanide murder detailed

PITTSBURGH — A former medical researcher has detailed the reasons for appealing his first-degree murder conviction in the cyanide poisoning death of his neurologist wife.

Sixty-six-year-old Robert Ferrante is serving life in prison since an Allegheny County jury convicted him last fall in the April 2013 death of Dr. Autumn Klein. Defense attorney Chris Eyster contends there was no evidence Ferrante put cyanide in his wife’s energy drink and that medical specialists disagreed about whether she died of poison or a sudden heart dysrhythmia.