Sterling Heights, October 13, 2004
Free Press

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Brain injuries and depression

They valued honor, truth and each other under the tenets of their Sikh faith, friends said.

But the bond they held all those years disintegrated Sunday in a fire that consumed their home and killed both of the 53-year-olds. Police said Amrik Singh left his wife unconscious in their basement, set the fire and eluded his children as they tried to put out the flames on his body.

As authorities and acquaintances struggle for understanding, court and medical records reviewed Tuesday by the Free Press offer some explanation. They paint a portrait of a couple psychologically ravaged by at least two serious accidents, including a 1999 car crash that left Amrik Singh emotionally desolate and uncharacteristically violent.

Experts said it's possible that brain trauma from the accident changed Singh's personality and made him more prone to violence. At the same time, they said, Sunday's violence cannot be excused.

The Singhs' children, two daughters in their 20s and a 12-year-old son, are preparing to bury their parents Saturday. They said they aren't ready to talk about the deaths but released a statement thanking the community for its support.

"We understand that everyone is trying to make sense of this tragedy," the statement reads. "We acknowledge the complicated circumstances surrounding this incident, but it is of the utmost importance to us that our parents receive a proper and respectful burial."

Birmingham attorney Scott Goodwin, who represented the couple after their car accident and became a friend, said daughters Aman and Kamal Singh are working to forgive their father.

"They feel that since their mom was such a forgiving person, that's something they have learned in their hearts and carried through," Goodwin said. "I think that gives them some peace."

Amrik Singh struggled with depression as far back as 1998 and attributed his headaches, suicidal thoughts, violence and pain to two serious accidents. He was electrically shocked and fell 6 feet while on the job at a tool and die factory in 1990. He didn't work for six months. Then came the 1999 car accident that sank husband and wife into depression and immobility.

The couple sued the other driver and their insurance company, settling for $340,000 in 2002 after a contentious legal battle. Doctors on either side of the case debated whether they really suffered the physical injuries they claimed, but friends said their warm personalities suddenly seemed haunted by shadows.

In broken English, Amrik Singh described the effects of the accident during a 2001 deposition: "Before accident everything like alive. Right after the accident everything like dead, the world look dead to me. Everything look nothing before me because I feel my pain, suffering, I feel like committing suicide."

According to the court file, Amrik, Baljinderjit and their son were stopped at a red light in Sterling Heights on Oct. 12, 1999. A Ford F-150 truck going about 60 m.p.h. slammed into the family's van with no effort to stop. The truck driver, Brian Ditri, fled and was later arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, according to police reports.

Ditri could not be reached Tuesday for comment. Macomb County court records show he petitioned the Michigan Secretary of State in late 1999 to get his driver's license back. In the lawsuit filed against him, Ditri accepted responsibility for the accident.

The Singhs' son was not seriously hurt, but the couple's seats dislodged on impact. Amrik Singh fell back and his arms began shaking. He and his wife were conscious and declined emergency medical care in the minutes after the crash. A witness said both looked dazed.

Severe pain set in soon after the couple went home that day, they would later tell doctors. They shuttled among specialists for months and ultimately required 24-hour care. According to the couple's lawsuit, he struggled with a spinal injury, head and neck trauma, nerve damage, a torn rotator cuff and other injuries. She had a closed head injury, numbness in her right arm and fingers and severe shock.

Both complained of headaches, erratic sleep and depression over losing their jobs and hobbies. Instead of gardening and going to work as a registered nurse at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Baljinderjit lay bereft on the couch. Amrik felt ashamed he could not wrap his turban -- customary at the Sikh temple in Plymouth where the family worshipped -- without his daughter's help.

"I'm different from other people, OK?" Singh testified in his deposition. "I can't go to my church. People laugh at me. 'Hey, you didn't wear the turban, what's wrong with you? What's wrong with your arm? You're just pretending.' That's bothering me."

Amrik experienced sudden anger and suicidal thoughts.

According to doctors' reports, he admitted to violent outbursts at his wife and children and had tantrums in which he broke things. One day he got in his car and drove north, thinking about suicide the whole way before turning the car around and coming home.

Goodwin said the legal attacks on the couple's credibility -- defense lawyers said in court documents that the couple's claims were "exaggerations and hysterics," and some doctors said they feigned injury -- deeply hurt Amrik Singh.

"When insurance companies are calling them frauds and malingerers and fakes, this was an attack on their honor," Goodwin said. "They come from a culture where honor is everything."

Amrik Singh was arrested in May on a charge of abusing his wife and was briefly hospitalized. According to Goodwin, Aman Singh felt her father was released too soon.

Michael Dabbs, president of the Brain Injury Association of Michigan, said the personality change Amrik Singh showed may have been responsible.

"You bet," he said. "If the frontal lobe portion of the brain is injured, it's going to create some type of disturbances both from characteristics of control or anger management and so forth."

But that's not an excuse for murder, he added.

"People with brain injuries need to be responsible, just like the rest of us," he said. "Just as if you or I had cancer, we would need to change our behaviors."