Long road to treatment for Vitali Davydov

At least Vitali A. Davydov won’t be going to prison.

Davydov, 20, pled guilty this week to murdering Dr. Wayne Fenton, a psychiatrist who, as we’ve said before, was the exception in a mental health system that is geared almost exclusively to patients who are able to seek treatment voluntarily. Dr. Fenton embraced the most difficult cases and never turned people away who were really suffering, including Davydov.

"The average psychiatrist in the Washington area is on Connecticut Avenue and he's seeing . . . some executive who got passed over for a promotion and is having a midlife crisis," said Fuller Torrey, a local psychiatrist who often referred severe cases to Fenton. "Wayne was one of the few out here seeing the severely mentally ill. He was strongly committed to providing care and promoting research for the sickest people."

Davydov will be committed to a Maryland psychiatric facility until he is no longer considered dangerous. Hopefully, that means he will finally receive the treatment Dr. Fenton was trying to get him the day he was murdered.