Miss Iowa

Understanding Regis Philbin, but still not liking sea cucumbers

One of the joys of writing a column is getting letters from my readers. After I explained what a boring sport soccer is, I got this entertaining missive from a reader named Mayra. Here is my reply:

Hi Mayra,

Nice to hear from you.

You begin:

“okay you are out of your mind!!! your article really offended me! i cant believe someone would let you actually write this article about soccer!!”

They only let me out of the psychiatric ward to write my column occasionally.

“many people love soccer!! if basketball, baseball and football are so much better, how come they dont have a world cup??!”

I’ll be sure to explain to the Yankees that there really is no such thing as the World Series.

You continue:

“… you know why?? because only americans think that these sports are cool. i think football, baseball, and basketball are really boring!!”

Everyone has his or her own tastes and or opinions. That’s why Regis Philbin has a career on TV.

“your so called "tips" are useless. making the goals bigger will be way too easy to score goals from even half of the field!!”

I’ve never thought scoring was such a terrible thing. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong.

“soccer is more intense because its non-stop except for half time.”

Of course, it’s also non-start.

“in soccer you have to be really good to score a goal. and in basketball pretty much anyone could score, not much skill in that.”

I’ll tell Kobe Bryant that the next time I run into him.

“also in soccer when you score one goal it counts as one point no matter where the person scores it from. and in basketball one score could be like 2 or 3 points which is pretty lame to me. why cant it just be one point?!”

You make a very good point. Shakespeare wrote tragedies about lesser crises than the three-point field goal.

“also in football one touchdown would be 6 points, why so much for one touchdown?!”

Maybe because it’s six times as exciting as a soccer goal?

“the u.s. game vs. nigeria was really suspense, even though it was only one goal it was worth it.”

I won’t let the Algerians know you called them Nigerians. Wars have begun over lesser slights.

“what really sucks is that the u.s. soccer team doesn't get enough support from people like you.”

If they would let me off the psych ward more often, I might be a greater athletic supporter.

“people should support the team because they are playing internationally and it takes hard work competing against other countries.”

Fortunately, we have a very good military. So if they beat us on the field, we can send in the Marines.

“who ever wins the world cup, they are the best in the world not just in the nation.”

That is hard to argue with.

“soccer is a fun and an exciting sport, you should try it first before criticizing.”

I tried sea cucumber once at a Chinese restaurant. I didn’t care for it, either.

“support the u.s. this saturday against ghana.”

And miss the Davis Farmer’s Market?

All the best,

Your good friend,

Rich

Arizona immigration

Nishi Property

Prisons vs. Higher Education

Not seeing the forest for the trees

The missing piece of the puzzle of why Amy Bishop shot six of her colleagues at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, killing three, is mental illness. The idea that she was a perfectly normal person who just snapped due to stress brought on by the loss of her job is absurd.

However, exactly what disease she has is unknown. Her husband has said she never had seen a psychiatrist or had any psychiatric disorder. Yet every story which has come out about her past, including the fact that she killed her brother, possibly sent a bomb to one of her other colleagues and harassed her neighbors suggest she was a very disturbed person for a long time.

This ABC News story is the best I have seen at getting to the question of her likely mental illness:

Accused Alabama shooter Amy Bishop screamed and cursed at children, instigating confrontations with their parents, according to former neighbors who painted a frightening portrait of an woman accused of a killing rampage.

Former Massachusetts neighbors described the brilliant scientist as a woman who 15 years ago had "face-to-face, nose-to-nose confrontations" over evening basketball games, skateboarders and even whether an ice cream truck would be allowed on the child-friendly street.

"She picked fights with them," said one neighbor, who did not want to be identified because Bishop's children return summers to visit their grandparents -- Judy and Samuel Bishop -- who still live on Fille Street in quiet Ipswich, Mass.

"The ice cream truck was banished from the street because [Bishop] told them her children were lactose intolerant," said the neighbor. "She even had one of the children's teachers fired."


Last week Bishop was arrested for killing three professors and injuring three others -- all colleagues at University of Alabama in Huntsville -- during a faculty meeting. She is currently on suicide watch.

Soon more disturbing news emerged from Bishop's background. Investigators unearthed several disturbing pieces to the puzzle of the suspect, an accomplished cellular biologist and mother of four children aged 8 to 18.

In 1986, she shot her then 18-year-old brother Seth Bishop with a shotgun at their home in Braintree, Mass., but was never charged in the shooting.

And in 1993, she and her husband were questioned by police after a pipe bomb was mailed to one of Bishop's colleagues, Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Paul Rosenberg.

I'm quite certain that Bishop's husband is completely innocent in her crimes. However, I sense that he cannot see the forest for the trees. For whatever reason, her very peculiar behavior and paranoid personality strikes him as perfectly normal. Yet everyone else saw Amy Bishop as off her rocker.

James Anderson has said that he and his wife were cleared in the mail bomb investigation and were never suspects.

Anderson told ABC affiliate WCVB-TV in Boston Monday that he had no idea why his wife would shoot their co-workers.

"Nobody understands what happened. Nobody knew," he said.

Anderson told The Associated Press that he and Bishop went to a shooting range just weeks before the killing, but said the family did not own a gun.

This is the first story on this case I have seen which gets the views of trained psychiatrists:

Though many at the university had heard grumblings that she had been denied tenure, police, psychological experts and even her own family say her motivation is an enigma.

"For a faculty member to murder colleagues after denial of tenure would probably require 'standard' experiences of disappointment, a sense of betrayal, and desperation and the additional burden of mental illness, either a severe depression or some form of psychosis," said Dr. Stephen Shuchter, professor of clinical psychiatry emeritus at The University of California, San Diego.

"We are likely to learn about these only if the perpetrator chooses to defend herself by presenting the mitigating circumstances of an insanity defense," he told ABCNews.com.

Bishop's strange personality was not unknown to some of her colleagues and neighbors:

Sylvia Fluckiger, a lab technician who worked with Bishop then, described her as "an oddball" and "socially a little awkward," according to the Boston Globe.

Among former neighbors, Bishop was cantankerous and not well liked.

Ipswich police logged two calls for neighborhood disputes from Bishop, and in 2002, she reported receiving harassing calls, according to local reports.

Once, neighbors organized a block party and didn't tell Bishop because of conflicts she had with people.

"We never had any issue with them directly," said the grandmother who knew the family. "But it was very uncomfortable with the other neighbors. Amy was not friendly. The high school kids at the time were very in to sports and they'd come out and play from 8:30 to 10 at night. The noise was bothersome to her."

If Bishop has a serious mental illness, it was not diagnosed:

... many psychiatric disorders can go undiagnosed for years, especially for those who lead insular lives.

"People in science and computers are solitary people," said Dr. Igor Galynker, associate chairman for the department of psychiatry and behavioral science at psychiatry at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City and professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein college of Medicine.


"They work in solitude and they don't need to interact in complex social situations and can be paranoid for a long time without someone realizing."

Schizophrenia can be marked by social isolation, odd behavior, "strange disordered" thinking and speaking, poor hygiene and lack of friends, according to Galynker.

Often people don't notice signs until more serious symptoms emerge.

"Brilliant scientists are supposed to be crazy," he told ABCNews.com.

My sense is that those who knew her and didn't think she was mentally ill likely assumed her eccentricities were normal behavior for a scientist.

Anti-social personality disorders can also result behavior that is "incompatible with laws," like stealing or shooting, he said. And in narcissism, a person can display disregard for the feelings of others or seek self-aggrandizement and, like Bernie Madoff, can be "very charming."

Psychotics like Seung-Hui Cho, the student who who killed 31 at Virginia Tech in 2007, are particularly dangerous.

Killers like Cho view others as inconsequential and often humiliation can set off a psychotic depression that could make a person violent or suicidal, said Galynker.

Those with personality disorders, such as Eric Harris, who went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in 1999, are particularly dangerous.

"They don't have a conscience," said Frank Ochberg, a Michigan psychiatrist and founder of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.

"There is the fear of getting caught, and then you get away with it and you harbor a sense that all these other people are crazy," said Ochberg. "There's a sense of entitlement."

Any of those psychiatric disorders could justify an insanity defense -- lacking the capacity to know right from wrong , according to both psychiatrists.

Ochberg, who is an expert in psychopathic predators and mass shootings, said female shooters are rare, but he admits, "mothers have done tragic things. They have killed their kids."

"In general being a woman and a mother makes you more in tune with your feelings, more nurturing and sympathetic," said Ochberg. "I believe men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but some women are from Mars."

NAMI's political philosophy has resulted in a great increase in the stigma attached to mental illness

One of the laudable goals of NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness) is to reduce the stigma associated with mental disease. The idea is to make Americans aware of the fact that psychiatric problems are not the patient's fault. They are not the product of bad parenting or moral weakness. They are biological illnesses, like cancer or the flu. They are not contagious and they can be treated effectively with a combination of pharmaceuticals and psychotherapy.

The hope is that by reducing stigma patients with mental issues will then seek out treatment, get well and be fully accepted as regular contributing members of society.

Ironically, however, NAMI's political philosophy has resulted in a great increase in the stigma attached to mental illness.

Why?

NAMI opposes involuntary treatment for the seriously mentally ill. NAMI's ideology is that the mentally ill are the same as everyone else and as such, they should not be forced into treatment. If we have to force some patients to take anti-psychotic medications, that would suggest that those folks really are not the same as you and me.

But allowing all patients to decide for themselves if they want to take anti-psychotic drugs means that many won't -- particularly those who, due to their disease, cannot understand that they are really sick -- and therefore we will necessarily have thousands of very sick mental patients all over the country not receiving treatment. Those untreated patients will act in a bizarre fashion and sometimes commit horrific crimes. And nothing does more to increase the stigma of mental illness than when a person with serious psychiatric problems becomes a danger to society.

More people today associate mental illness with violent crimes than they ever did in the past. And the greatest source of stigmatization of mental illness is its association with violence, according to the Surgeon General.

If you were trying to create a stigmatizing scenario about someone with serious mental illness on the loose, you could do a lot worse than portray Kain Figuereo. Everything about him right now screams "be afraid; he is dangerous."

Mr. Figuereo is a large man with paranoid schizophrenia. He is not being treated for his illness. He is confused and extremely paranoid. He has a background in the military, which probably means he knows how to use weapons. And authorities don't know where he is.

If Kain Figuereo commits a violent crime, stigma for the mentally ill will increase.

Here is the latest news from the Standard Speaker in Hazleton, Pennsylvania:

State police at Hazleton are looking for a missing man with a history of mental illness.

Police said Kain Figuereo, 50, was last seen at Ramada Inn, state Route 309, Hazle Township, on Jan. 15.

He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and hasn't been taking his medication, which may make him confused and extremely paranoid. He is an Army veteran and has been committed several times in the past for mental evaluations.

"He repeatedly struck the rabbi on the head with an aluminum baseball bat as the victim was walking to synagogue to pray"

Because there is so much anti-Semitism in our world, it's normal to think that must be the cause when a rabbi is savagely attacked out of the blue. To all Jews, myself included, the notion is quite frightening that someone would hate us so much that he would take a baseball bat and bash a rabbi over the head repeatedly for no reason at all.

Unless, of course, there was a reason: serious, untreated mental illness. It's hard to assign blame in that case to Jew-hatred. When someone is delusional and psychotic, he is a danger to everyone, Jew and gentile.

That is just what happened in Toms River, New Jersey. Here is the story from the Washington Post:

TOMS RIVER, N.J. -- A man who savagely beat a New Jersey rabbi with a baseball bat during an unprovoked attack has been sentenced to eight years in state prison.

Lee Tucker must serve 85 percent of the term imposed Friday before becoming eligible for parole. He also must pay $9,500 in restitution to the rabbi, who has suffered seizures since the October 2007 attack in Lakewood.

Tucker, who has a history of mental illness, pleaded guilty in December to aggravated assault. He repeatedly struck the rabbi on the head with an aluminum baseball bat as the victim was walking to synagogue to pray.

The rabbi suffered skull, nose and eye socket fractures as well as a brain hemorrhage.

What was not said on the local TV news was more important that what was

When I turned on the local news last night at 10 pm, I saw a reporter holding a microphone, stationed outside an upper-middle class home in Carmichael. On the screen was the word "live." I could see in the penumbra camera crews and reporters from other stations. Every news producer in Sacramento had decided an armed gunman in a stand-off with police was really big news.

However, the stand-off itself was long over. The reporters were on that street (LIVE!) to explain what had culminated five hours earlier. This is the AP summary of what happened:

A nearly six-hour standoff between an armed man and Sacramento County sheriff's deputies has ended safely.

Sheriff's Sgt. Tim Curran says the 52-year-old man pointed a gun at his mother after an argument with his parents at the suburban Sacramento home the three share. The man surrendered after deputies fired rounds of tear gas into the home in Carmichael, east of Sacramento.

A 52-year-old man living with his parents and pointing a gun at his mother?

What I knew immediately was that the "gunman" was seriously mentally ill and in all likelihood not being medicated. Yet the reporter on Channel 13 never mentioned that.

I suppose a responsible reporter is not supposed to speculate about an alleged criminal's psychiatric condition. But honestly, what else would explain such a crazy action?

The Associated Press story confirmed what I knew:

Curran says the man has a history of mental illness. Curran says it isn't immediately clear if the man will face criminal charges or will be referred for mental health treatment after Saturday's standoff.

Since TV reporters don't ever explain the reason we regularly have stories like this one is because we don't force people with serious mental illnesses to take their medications, the general public is left in the dark.

Many seem to think it's just a sign of the deteriorating morality in our society or the ubiquity of firearms. Most people naturally place blame on the man with the serious mental illness. Perhaps they think it's the fault of his parents for not raising him properly.

But he, of course, is not in control of his faculties and in all likelihood does not even understand that he is mentally ill. His parents don't have the legal right to force him to get treatment. They simply love their son and are suffering for it.

The blame lies with the rest of us who don't call for our laws to be changed so that men like the guy in Carmichael get treatment, voluntarily or otherwise. If he had been on anti-psychotic meds, the TV reporters and the SWAT team would have been off of that street.

John Edwards: made in the USA, but not really "Made in the USA"

A new tell-all book about former Sen. John Edwards, who was once thought to be a strong contender for the presidency in 2008 and was Sen. John Kerry's running mate in 2004, is now available in bookstores. This book, called The Politician, is making headlines and affecting lives.

Although Edwards's bright-light dimmed 18 months ago -- he was a less effective candidate in the 2008 primaries than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton -- and was put out when it was reported last year that Edwards was a serial philanderer and had fathered a child out of wedlock with one of his aides, this book is making news because it seems to have caused Mr. Edwards to finally concede what everyone else knew: that his mistress's child was also his. And that concession seems to have prompted his cancer-stricken wife, who naively believed her husband up to that point, to divorce him.

What is notable about the book's author, Andrew Young -- not the same Andrew Young who was the Mayor of Atlanta and who served in the Carter Administration -- is how intimately he was involved in the affair itself. He helped Edwards pull it off. He helped with keeping things quiet and making sure payments were made. And when the Senator's paramour, Rielle Hunter, became pregnant, he took on the role of pretending that he was actually the baby's daddy.

I have no idea if all of Mr. Young's charges are true. (Young accuses Mrs. Edwards of politicizing her cancer diagnosis.) Both John and Elizabeth Edwards's representatives have said they are not. I don't care enough one way or the other. I won't read the book. However, the decline and fall of John Edwards does intrigue me.

In January 2006, John Edwards came to Davis as part of his pre-campaign campaign for the 2008 nomination. This is part of what I wrote about his appearance, which I attended at the Mondavi Center at UC Davis:

Though he has a very thin resume in elected office – his only experience in government was the single term he served in the U.S. Senate – John Edwards has all the markings of a person who could get elected president.

He speaks well. He’s good looking. He’s bright. He’s charming. He’s not a blowhard or a bore.

The Senator-cum-trial lawyer connects on an emotional level. He knows how to say what his audience wants to hear. And, even when talking about difficult problems, he comes across as a positive and uplifting character. If Edwards ever made it to the White House, his style would be more Ronald Reagan, less Jimmy Carter.

At that time and for the next two years, I did not think Edwards was going to win the Democratic nomination. I thought Hillary Clinton, with her more impressive resume and her greater degree of celebrity, would win. (Obviously, I did not give enough weight to Barack Obama's immense talent as a candidate.) But I saw Edwards as a top player, as someone who would for a long time be in the game. He had too much charm to just fade away.

Yet now that he has crashed and burned, we won't likely hear too much more from him.

Here are some excerpts from the new Young book from a CNN report:

... when Edwards impregnated Hunter, Young said he agreed to the senator's request to lie and say he was the father even though Young, himself, was married with three children.

Young said Hunter was also initially against the idea but warmed up to it after being told her financial needs would be met. His wife, Cheri, eventually agreed to the plan, setting in motion a chaotic time for the family as they uprooted their lives in North Carolina and criss-crossed the country with Hunter and their children in an effort to evade the media.

Young portrays John Edwards as a vain man whose only care in the world was himself:

Young said it wasn't until John Edwards privately expressed indifference about the birth of his daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter, in February 2008, that he realized the former senator cared only about himself.

"After watching and hearing John Edwards practice a thousand little deceptions and tell a thousand different lies, ostensibly in the service of some greater good, I finally recognized that he didn't care about anyone other than himself," Young writes.

"A precious living, breathing human being -- his daughter -- had come into the world, and he wasn't inclined to even call the woman who had given birth to her. Instead, I had to prompt him to do the right thing, to do the most basic, human thing."

Young also portrays Edwards's populism as phony:

Despite Edwards' carefully crafted image as a champion for everyday people, he was "irritated by ordinary events. He especially hated making appearances at state fairs, where 'fat rednecks try to shove food down my face. I know I'm the people's senator, but do I have to hang out with them?'"

Young further portrays Edwards's sympathy for union workers in the U.S. as contrived:

Edwards understood his audience and before appearing at a Service Employees International Union health care event in Las Vegas, Nevada, he instructed Young to take his Italian suit coat to a tailor to remove the label indicating it was Italian-made. In its place, Edwards had the tailor sew in a "Made in the USA" label that had been on Young's jacket.

Edwards made most of his fortune as a trial lawyer. He convinced gullible jurors to award his clients millions of dollars in medical "malpractice" cases, even when the doctors being sued followed the best available scientific evidence to guide their decisions. The fact that a lawyer of that caliber is in reality a fraud is not surprising. But the fact that this particular fraud has been exposed as such is something I never expected.

Psychosis: She used her stove to light a blanket on fire in an attempt to kill her boy

Whenever you hear a story of a mother killing her children, know that the reason is almost certainly the woman's untreated mental illness. No rational-thinking mom would ever try to harm her kids. It's not a byproduct of punishment or selfishness. It's a byproduct of severe psychosis.

There was a story today out of Las Vegas, in which a mother tried to kill her son. Fortunately, a heroic neighbor intervened and saved the boy's life:

A southwest valley condo resident is being called a hero for saving the life of a six -year-old boy whose mother was trying to kill him.

A fire broke out on Wednesday afternoon at the West Tropicana Condominiums near Trop and Decatur. A neighbor, Brian Morace and his wife (pictured above) saw the fire and Morace went in despite the objections of the boy's mother. Once inside the smoke-filled condo, he rescued the boy, but suffered smoke inhalation.

The 36-year-old mother suffered second and third-degree burns. Police say the woman used her stove to light a blanket on fire in an attempt to kill the boy. The woman, who also has a history of mental illness is expected to face charges of arson and attempted murder.

I'm not sure if parenticide is always due to untreated mental illness. But I would suspect it mostly is. The Examiner today reports one such case out of San Diego:

Heather D'Aoust was 14 when she attacked her adoptive mother with a claw hammer in their Scripps Ranch home May 25, 2008.

During the attack, she struck her mother Rebecca D'Aoust, a school teacher and counselor, at least 25 times. The victim died the next day of head injuries sustained during the assault.

D'Aoust, who has a history of mental illness, professes to not knowing why she did it and said as much during Wednesday's sentencing for the crime in San Diego County Superior Court.

Now 16, she was sentenced to 16 years-to-life in state prison for second-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon. She pleaded guilty in December 2009

San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis called it a "tragic case for everyone involved."

When her adoptive father came to his wife's aid, she attacked him too.

Though the defendant professed not knowing why she killed to her sentencing judge, Superior Court Judge Michael Wellington, she told a San Diego County Probation Officer that she had planned to kill the whole family that morning, including her sister and the sister’s boyfriend.

“Hopefully, Heather will get the mental health treatment she needs while serving her sentence,” Dumanis said.

If Heather had been treated from the get-go, her mother would be alive today and Heather would not be in prison.

Without mental hospitals and without treatment, tragic outcomes are the only possibility, especially for someone born a sociopath

When we had public mental hospitals, people who were born with defective brains which made them insane from early in life were placed in them. In those hospitals, they got treatment. Possibly, such a person could be healed, to the extent he could live in society on medications. If restoration of health was not possible, they and society could be kept safe. However, without mental hospitals and without treatment, tragic outcomes are the only possibility, especially for someone who seems to have been born a sociopath.

As the Bradenton Herald reports, Clifford Davis was born mentally damaged. And his life was tragic thereafter. As a consequence of not being hospitalized, he murdered his mother and his grandfather and then raped his mother's corpse:

BRADENTON — From as young as a 2-year-old, Clifford Davis showed signs of a troubled boy out of touch with reality, several relatives testified Monday.

Members of the Davis family came from Texas to testify on behalf of the man accused of killing his mother, Stephanie Davis, and grandfather, Joel Hill, more than four years ago.

Davis’ attorneys are looking to spare their client the death penalty by convincing a jury that Davis was insane at the time of the killings, seeking a not-guilty verdict by reason of insanity.

“I remember when he was 2, we were on a family trip and he didn’t like what we were doing and he suddenly turned around and spit in my face,” said half-brother James Davis. “It was always like that with him. One minute he was fine, then the next minute he would not even speak to me.”

Other family members testified to a similar pattern of erratic behavior throughout Davis’ life, a pained existence of depression and isolation. Family members have testified that Davis also descended into an obsession with violent video games, at times playing for 18 hours a day.

Families of mentally ill children need to be educated as well. They should have had him medicated early on, so he never got this bad.

“Clifford just never really connected with people on an emotional level. There was always a disconnect there. It was just always hard to reach Clifford,” his aunt Carol Anderson testified.

Davis’ attorney, Assistant State Attorney Carolyn Schlemmer, also presented medical professionals who said her client’s behavior was not just strange, but symptomatic of debilitating mental illness.

California psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Wu testified that Davis, 23, suffers from brain abnormalities on a brain scan conducted in 2006 that may have resulted from a psychotic disorder.

In addition to two counts of first-degree murder, Davis is also accused of sexually assaulting his mother’s dead body and of robbery. He has admitted in court — outside the presence of the jury — that on Dec. 4, 2005, he killed his mother and grandfather in the Wares Creek apartment he shared with his mother.

Now Mr. Davis's fate is in the hands of his judge and jury:

Smith would decide Davis’ fate should a jury find him not guilty by reason of insanity, which could include a lifetime commitment to a mental hospital.

Obviously this guy should have been committed to a mental hospital for life long before he committed these horrific senseless crimes.

Kenneth McDougall had schizophrenia and had been committed earlier: "He was a 'gentle man' but had stopped taking medication"

When most people hear about a murder committed by someone who is seriously mentally ill, they presume the killer was a sociopath who had no regard for innocent life. But generally, that is not the case.

If a schizophrenic goes off his meds, he becomes a completely different person and has no sense of what he is doing, thinking and irrationally perceiving. He may believe he is acting in self-defense when he kills innocents. Or he may think God has commanded him to attack others in order to save society.

On meds, he would understand, at least, that those are crazy ideas. But off meds, it's a kill or be killed world in his diseased mind.

Kenneth McDougall was off his meds. Justina McDougall died for that. The Winnepeg (Canada) Free Press reports:

A Portage la Prairie man accused of killing his wife has a history of mental illness.

Kenneth Edward McDougall, 54, was charged with first-degree murder after his wife collapsed in their home last Wednesday. Medical officials tried CPR to rouse the woman, but to no avail.

Justina Shteen Unrau McDougall, 47, died in hospital three days later.

Medical officials were doing an autopsy Monday to determine her cause of death.

"My sister was a very loving person who had hundreds of friends," said Helen Unrau, Justina McDougall's sister.

"She will be dearly missed."

Helen Unrau said Kenneth McDougall had schizophrenia and had been committed to a care institution after an earlier incident involving his wife.

Unless a patient can be forced to keep taking antipsychotics, it makes no sense to release him. Yet McDougall was released and not forced to take his meds.

Unrau said the earlier event made her fear something might again happen to her sister.

Her brother-in-law was a "gentle man" but had stopped taking medication, which she thinks was a mistake.

"She was also the victim at that time but she took him back. He was supposed to be cured," she said. "He used to be a very loving husband and father."

"Three of the four people who had walked in front of moving trains last year were also students at Gunn High School"

Suicide is almost always the byproduct of untreated mental illness. I doubt Brian Taylor was ever a danger to anyone but himself. However, had he been forced to take medication, he would be alive today:

Brian Bennion Taylor, a 19-year-old graduate of Palo Alto’s Gunn High School, was struck and killed by a southbound train at Meadow Drive at 11:45 p.m. Friday night, in an apparent suicide.

San Mateo County transit police are investigating the death as a suicide, though no official cause of death has been released as of press time. Taylor’s mother said her son, who graduated in 2008 and attended Brigham Young University, had a history of mental illness, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Taylor was killed near the crossing at East Meadow Drive, the fifth death at the same intersection since last May. Three of the four people who had walked in front of moving trains last year were also students at Gunn High School.

10 years in prison for attacking his mother with a hammer

Last Wednesday on this blog I wrote: "In the vast majority of cases where an untreated mental patient commits a violent crime ... the victim is a family member."

Today I noticed a story out of Wisconsin where a son tried to kill his mother. The son, of course, has untreated mental illness:

FOREST CITY — A Lake Mills man was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison Friday after being convicted of attacking his mother with a hammer.

A Winnebago County Court judge also ordered that Timothy P. Winter, 37, serve a mandatory minimum of at least five years for attacking Cynthia Winter, 63, in April 2009.

Winter’s attorney, Susan Flander, asked the judge to consider that her client has mental health issues. She said Winter is on medication to control his condition and has demonstrated his competency.

Philip Garland, Winnebago assistant county attorney, agreed that Winter “has had mental health issues,” and his criminal record does not include felony assault, but he said the attack on Winter’s mother was brutal.

Judge Colleen Weiland said she considered Winter’s mental health, but his prior criminal history including combative behavior justified the five-year minimum.

Notice that he is on medication now that he is in the criminal justice system. If we had a sane system for dealing with the seriously mentally ill, this crime never would have taken place. Timothy Winter would have been on medication before any crazy ideas like attacking his mother with a hammer took over him.