Experts find Tampa woman accused of extreme child abuse fit for trial | Tampa Bay Times

"The first time I saw her, I thought her thinking was of delusional proportions," said psychologist Richard Carpenter. He diagnosed her with major depression with psychotic features, and recommended that she be sent to the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee.

There, doctors offered a different diagnosis: paranoid personality order. They also thought she might be faking her symptoms.

When Hicks returned from the hospital, Carpenter found her a changed person.

"Her thinking was better organized, less delusional," he said. She had lost a considerable amount of weight, leading him to conclude that she was still "somewhat depressed, but she didn't appear psychotic."

Hicks still had odd ideas about the justice system, he said, and she continued to hold religious beliefs so extreme, it was sometimes difficult for him to distinguish them from delusions.

"She is probably a literalist, in regards to literally interpreting the Bible in a very concrete way," Carpenter said.

Experts find Tampa woman accused of extreme child abuse fit for trial | Tampa Bay Times