The spoils of psychosis

Joshua Hoge is confined at Western State Hospital after being found not guilty by reason of insanity for murdering his mother. He is now trying to claim all or part of his late mother's estate, despite a Washington State law that prevents someone from profiting from killing someone else.

The bulk of the estate that he is trying to claim - $800,000 - came from a lawsuit filed against the clinic that kept Joshua from getting the treatment he needed for his schizophrenia - treatment that might have prevented him from stabbing his mother and brother to death with a butcher knife in the first place.

There's a great deal of gnashing of teeth over the possibility of Joshua "winning" this money - which would likely be used to support him if and when he is ever permitted to transition into a group home and back into society.

While Seattle University law professor John Strait acknowledges that this is "nutty logic," he agrees that Hoge may very well be entitled to the money. "For all intents and purposes, there is no crime," he says. "We don't punish people for being really sick."

Unless you count forcing them to remain psychotic, stab their family members, and spend their lives in a forensic facility ...

Unlucky 7

Justin Quintana claimed he was God. He called police officers to saying he should be treated like the President and wanted 24-hour protection. He threatened his mother, and police had been called to Quintana’s house six times in a little more than a year. His mother – Susan Kuchma- was a state police officer, but there was nothing she could do to get treatment for her son’s paranoid schizophrenia. He didn’t chose treatment and wasn’t deemed dangerous.

One of Kuchma's family members said Friday that the officer loved her son and took great pains to document his behavior with the goal of getting him help. But her efforts were often frustrated.

"It's a lot of red tape," said Kuchma's niece and Quintana's cousin, Tenika Susana Sosa-Quintana, 28, of Mesquite. "...we all have civil liberties and Justin is an adult and Justin has not been deemed incompetent by any court.

"The whole thing comes down to whether or not a person is construed to be dangerous to themselves and/or others," said Ron Gurley, a local advocate for the mentally ill. "Well, that is in the eyes of the beholder. But locally here there seems to be a strict adherence to dangerousness being something where you have to almost present the fact that you are going to hurt somebody or hurt yourself."

Last Thursday, the seventh time police were called to Quintana’s home, officers found Kuchma dead from a gun shot wound. Maybe now that Quintana is charged with murdering his mother he’ll get treatment.

She suffocated her parents so they would live...

Harvard educated doctor, Kathleen Hagen, has struggled with bipolar disorder her entire life. Seven years ago she spiraled into psychosis and heard a voice that told her she could transport herself and her parents to a better place by suffocating them.

"I was thinking about Resurrection with a capital 'R,'" said Hagen. "I thought they were going to arise and I was going to hear Mommy in the kitchen making breakfast."

Parricides in California

In the past four months, three young men have been accused of killing their parents in Contra Costa County, California, two in the last five days. All three young men suffer from mental illness and were living at home.

[Angelito Ares, who stabbed his father to death] had a long history of mental disorder. The father had been attempting to help him with those issues, and had actually taken him in the past two years.

A local pastor said [Lymus] Howard [who beat his mother to death,] has suffered emotional problems since age 6 when he saw his father shot dead. Friends said his mother battled with Howard to get him to take his medication.

[Andrew Matas’] father said the boy hears voices, and admitted he had stopped taking his anti-psychotic medication, Risperdal. [Matas bludgeoned his mother to death with a baseball bat.]

And yet some are having trouble seeing a link in the crimes.

Waiting for danger? Here it is.

“What do we have to wait for? Do we have to wait for him to hurt somebody or
kill somebody before they do something?”

Seems like far too often, the answer is yes.

Wait until he escalates. Until you can prove he is a danger. Until danger is imminent.

The latest result of such twisted and irrational policies is making headlines in Maine this week.

Robert and Amy Bruce spent years trying to help their son deal with his mental illness, even letting him live at home despite their fears. But on Tuesday, the illness won out and authorities say William Bruce, 24, bludgeoned his mother to death. Efforts to help William Bruce through the years were stymied, first by the hope that he would grow out of it and later by confidentiality laws and civil liberties intended to protect his freedom, but at the expense of the treatment he badly needed but refused to accept.

The Bruce family, barred from having a say in many of their son's treatment decisions, were left to either turn their back on him or accommodate his illness and accept the risks.