Sad story from Minnesota

Shortly after Stephen R. Miles was arrested for the slaying of his stepmother last December, attention focused on the family's unsuccessful attempts to hospitalize him just hours before the grisly killing in Burnsville. But parents Roland and Carol Miles struggled for years to get help for their 23-year old son, especially in the days and months before Maris Jo Miles died, recently filed court documents show. As the parents, social workers and doctors became concerned about Miles' worsening condition last year, each of them was powerless by themselves to force treatment on an adult who refused to take anti-psychotic medications. "The system is designed so that you have to fail first," said Sue Hanson, a mental health advocate and mother of a schizophrenic son. " And then you have to continue to be ill in order to receive help."

Miles is accused of decapitating his stepmother. Read the chilling transcript of his emergency room visit before the murder ...