ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The bizarre and tragic story of a local business owner brutally slain and the man found insane in the killing has a hair-raising new development. After only three years in the custody of state medical care, the man who believes he was fighting a werewolf when he stabbed a stranger in Old Town Alexandria in 2018 has been granted conditional release.
Pankaj Bhasin, now 37, of New Jersey has been in state care since his sentencing in 2019 following a mistrial on a hung jury, that could not decide if the man who admitted to stabbing local business owner Brad Jackson, a stranger, was fit to stand trial. He was eventually found clinically insane and subsequently not guilty by reason of insanity.
This week, a judge in Alexandria granted conditional release to Bhasin, according to the Circuit Court Clerk's Office. The Virginia Department of Behavioral Health will determine the exact date of Bhasin's release, but it is expected to be soon.
Alexandria Commonwealth Attorney Bryan Porter, who originally fought against the insanity plea in the original trial, tells WUSA9 that his office strenuously objected to any conditional release.
On the morning of July 13, 2018, Pankaj Bhasin, then 33, drove from his home across state lines into Washington where he was removed from the lobby of the Four Season hotel in Georgetown for unusual behavior, according to court documents from the case.
Bhasin then headed to Old Town Alexandria where he fixated on a local small business owner, Brad Jackson and followed him into a window store. Following an altercation with Jackson, Bhasin beat the man and stabbed him over 50 times with a box cutter.
According to police who responded, Bhasin claimed at the time he believed Jackson had begun turning into a werewolf during the fight. Bhasin said he had to kill Jackson to “save 99 percent of the moon and planets.”
Following a plea of not guilty by insanity in the 2019 trial, five separate treating mental health professionals, in addition to two expert witnesses, testified about Bhasin's severe bipolar disorder and psychosis. The two experts concluded Bhasin met the definition of legal insanity.
Still, according to the Commonwealth Attorney's Office, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney David Lord argued that Bhasin was intelligent enough to fake his symptoms and noted the drastic and gruesome nature of the crime.
According to Bhisan's lawyer Peter Greenspun, the jury deliberated for three days but could not reach a unanimous verdict, so a mistrial was declared on March 27. It was determined that, while not unanimous, at least nine of the 12 jurors were in favor of a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict.
According to the Washington Post's reporting on the case, the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office ordered its own psychiatric evaluation following the mistrial, and that doctor agreed Bhasin was clinically insane when he killed Jackson.
In light of the additional diagnosis, Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Porter said it would be unethical to put Bhasin on trial again.
Bhasin was transferred to a state-run secure mental health facility for further treatment and evaluation in late July 2019.