WOBURN — John Odgren was anxious, frustrated with the teasing and the harassment. He had thoughts of getting a “golden gun’’ and shooting one of his bullies, and he told his parents that he wanted to kill himself.
He was just 9 years old.
That was the testimony yesterday of his father, Paul, who took the stand to describe his son’s long history of emotional problems and mental disorders.
John bounced from school to school, Paul Odgren testified, and had several psychologists. And he told each one the same story of teasing, of wanting to commit suicide, of being afraid of others and doing anything to stop the harassment.
But he always told counselors, “I could not kill anyone,’’ the elder Odgren told jurors yesterday.
The father’s testimony, during Odgren’s murder trial in Middlesex Superior Court, is central to an insanity defense being presented by his law yers, a seldom-used and rarely successful strategy that they say is appropriate in this case.
John Odgren could face life in prison for the Jan. 19, 2007, stabbing of James Alenson, a 15-year-old freshman whom Odgren had not met, in a boys bathroom at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. If he is found not guilty by reason of insanity, he would be ordered held indefinitely at a state psychiatric hospital until a judge determines that he is no longer a danger to the public.
Odgren’s lawyers argue that he suffers from mental disorders that bred an obsession with weapons and violent stories, to the point that he lost touch with reality. Prosecutors say he was well aware of his actions.
After a week of prosecution testimony that laid out the gruesome details of the attack, Paul Odgren began yesterday to portray the troubled child he remembers from earlier years, the anxious toddler who seemed to live as a loner, the grade-schooler who spoke out in class and often came home crying.
“He told us he really wanted friends, but no one called,’’ his father testified yesterday, showing little emotion but speaking matter-of-factly. “He was far behind and isolated.’’
Odgren’s parents first sought help from counselors after he completed the third grade at the Thomas Prince School in Princeton, where he grew up. In a span of a few months, he had put himself in danger by swimming into a lake to get away from other people, started drinking liquids such as bleach, and told his parents that he wanted to kill himself when he got older, Paul Odgren testified.
The childhood portrait that emerged of John Odgren was complex. He was described as a smart boy; before he could read, he could identify all 50 states by their shapes and name them. But by then he had already shown signs of mental problems, his father said. He was anxious; he would not socialize with others.
And he had organizational problems; he would put his clothes on backwards, Paul Odgren said.
Psychologists diagnosed major depression in the boy, a pronouncement that was particularly worrisome to his parents because of a history of depression in his mother’s family.
When asked by a psychologist to name three wishes, the boy said he wanted to win a million dollars, to have a lifetime supply of junk food, and “for the girls at school to treat me like a person, not like a pitiful mistake,’’ his father said.
Odgren was prescribed the drug Ritalin, to control his attention deficit disorder. But his problems did not stop. Eventually, he was diagnosed with other disorders, including Asperger’s disorder, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, according to his father’s testimony. He would continue to blurt things out in class.
His lack of control did not help him make friends, and he was bullied, according to his father. He spoke of a hate club of people who did not like him. He was fixated on bullies and refused to enter a school dance because one bully was near the entrance.
His first show of violence came in the fourth grade when he was being teased by a student while standing in line. He “turned around and stabbed him in the chest with a pencil,’’ his father said.
“He didn’t injure the boy, but said, ‘I just snapped,’ ’’ his father said.
Odgren’s lawyers have pointed to his mental disorder, particularly Asperger’s disorder, a form of autism, in trying to show that he would fixate on things. In the months before the killing, his fixation was the violence he saw in video games and read about in books, his father said. But even before then, he found his own obsessions, his father testified.
As a youngster, he obsessed about volcanoes and other natural disasters, to the point he feared every thunderstorm would turn into a tornado. In grade school, he feared bullies and started to keep a bat and toy gun by his bed, to feel safe. Eventually, he started to talk about knives and guns, something his father said he tried to discourage, but could not control.
Odgren was forced to leave Thomas Prince School in the seventh grade, after he locked himself in a bathroom for more than an hour out of fear of other students. School officials had to remove the door hinges to get in.
He was transferred to the Caldwell Alternative School in Fitchburg through a partnership with Princeton schools, but the bullying continued. “You told me it was going to get better, but it’s not better; it’s worse,’’ he told his parents.
“He would come home from school, curl up on the floor, and cry,’’ his father said. “We asked the school district to find another place for him; he was deteriorating so fast.’’
Odgren was eventually brought to independent schools. He improved at Pathways Academy, a special needs program run by McLean Hospital.
At the beginning of high school, he attended The Learning Clinic in Connecticut and started to thrive, his father said. He did so well that staff officials told his parents he was ready for a program with more of a mainstream school setting.
Odgren was then referred to the Great Opportunities Program at Lincoln-Sudbury, which is for special needs students ready for an open school environment.
But his father said he soon started to show his old tendencies: he started acting out in classes, speaking out of turn. He brought a penknife to school, then a toy gun.
And his fascination with Stephen King thriller novels became obsessive. He was disciplined for tagging graffiti of the Crimson King, one of Stephen King’s most infamous villains, on bathroom walls and desks. He was also fixated on the number 19, a significant symbol in King’s “The Dark Tower’’ series.
That was also the date, Jan. 19, 2007, he entered a high school bathroom and stabbed an unsuspecting Alenson to death. 
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