Defense attorneys for Shane Sloan, the 29-year-old Pine Township man accused of strangling his mother last February, called their first two witnesses to the stand Wednesday morning in Mercer County Common Pleas Court.

Sloan faces first- and third-degree murder charges for allegedly killing Susan LaRue Fleeger after she tried to stop him from killing himself in the trailer they shared off of South Center Street Extension.

Attorneys Chris St. John and Doug Straub were assigned by the county Public Defender's Office to represent Sloan in the case.

Their first witnesses -- Dr. Matthew Glenn of United Community Hospital, Pine Township, and Geri Tulip of the Mercer County Behavioral Health Commission -- cared for Sloan on the day of the killing.

Glenn was medical director of the hospital's emergency room when paramedics and state police brought Sloan there late in the morning of Feb. 5, 2001.

Glenn examined Sloan and observed that he was initially in a state of shock and his vital signs (such as pulse and breathing rates, blood pressure and body temperature) were unstable, and that he was bleeding from cuts on both forearms and wrists.

Sloan also was lucid, alert, able to explain clearly what had happened and aware of what was going on around him, Glenn said.

Glenn said Sloan told him he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder -- a manic depressive disorder marked by emotional highs and lows -- and was prescribed to take lithium. A blood test showed relatively little of the mood stabilizing drug in Sloan's system, Glenn said. Sloan also told Glenn the cuts on his arms were from one of his several failed suicide attempts that morning, Glenn said.

It took 50 stitches to close Sloan's cuts and a combination of the anti-psychotic drug Haldol and the sedative Atavan to medically stabilize him, Glenn said. Sloan was taken to Mercer County Jail in the afternoon.

Haldol and its generic equivalents are often prescribed for those who hear voices or are thinking delusionally, and they also are prescribed to calm those who are in a highly agitated mental or physical state, pharmacists said. It was routinely given to senior citizens at nursing home years ago to keep them quiet, one pharmacist added.

Glenn said he took steps to get Sloan admitted to a psychiatric ward. That is when the second witness, Ms. Tulip, became involved.

Ms. Tulip, an emergency services specialist for the county Behavioral Health Commission, interviewed Sloan at the jail. She said Sloan, while sad and disheveled, was polite and cooperative. Sloan told her he had had increased suicidal thoughts in the week before the killing and that: "People are not giving me the respect I deserve," Ms. Tulip testified.

Ms. Tulip recommended that Sloan be transferred to Warren State Hospital, North Warren, Pa., for close psychological evaluation, because she felt that there was "a reasonable probability that (his) behavior caused a clear and present danger to himself and those around him." He spent 23 days at the psychiatric hospital.

Court was recessed shortly after noon Wednesday to accommodate the defense's next witness, who was not expected to arrive from California until Wednesday night. Judge Michael J. Wherry said the defense was expected to call at least two expert witnesses to the stand today.