For Exactly Ten Minutes that Morning, He Was “Dangerous.”

My son killed his grandmother (my mother) while she was eating breakfast. He wasn’t angry, and he wasn’t trying to hurt us. In his mind, he was protecting us. He believed she was a witch whose soul had been removed. That morning, a voice he knew as the Archangel Michael had told him, “It’s time.” He put on what he thought of as his Angelic Army uniform, picked up the knife he had been using to chop raw cabbage, and walked into the kitchen.

In the space of one minute, I lost my mother to death, and I lost my son to prison.

For exactly ten minutes that morning, he was “dangerous.”

Before and after, he was quiet, polite, confused, and never violent. We knew something was terribly wrong: he had false memories, strange beliefs, difficulty comprehending everyday tasks, and sometimes he didn’t even understand our speech.

But the law said we couldn’t act unless there was “clear and present danger.” That’s not how brain disorders work. They cause disability long before they cause danger. His mind was already malfunctioning in dangerous ways, but because the danger wasn’t immediate and visible, we were told there was nothing to be done.

After he was arrested, seeing the mugshot nearly destroyed me. He looks blank, bewildered — like he isn’t even sure what he’s seeing. Strangers might glance at it and see evil. I see my son, swallowed by schizophrenia, not understanding the world around him. That is what untreated psychosis does: it robs a person of recognition, of self, and of humanity in the eyes of others.

It is excruciating to show people his face at the lowest point in his life. But it’s why I keep telling this story. If families like mine stay silent, nothing will change.

After the homicide, I thought the courts would recognize that his illness drove his actions. But the law had other plans. On paper, there are two options in our state's law: Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, which should mean hospital care until the person is no longer a risk; and Guilty But Mentally Ill, which sends the person to prison with the promise of some treatment. The problem is that the legal definitions for them are almost identical. Juries can’t tell the difference. Judges can’t, either. So defense attorneys always advise families not to risk a trial.

That’s what happened to us. He pled guilty to Third Degree Murder and was sentenced to 20 years. The judge even said the sentence had to be long because the county had no way to make him stay on medication otherwise.

First, he wasn’t “dangerous enough” to qualify for treatment. Then he was “too dangerous” for the Insanity Defense to matter. That double bind — denied care before tragedy, denied justice after — is a cruelty I wouldn’t wish on any family.

The reason the state law is this way traces back to 1982, when John Hinckley shot President Reagan and was found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity. The country was outraged. People feared criminals would fake mental illness to escape punishment. States rushed to tighten laws. Many states created Guilty But Mentally Ill, supposedly to close that loophole. But instead of writing a separate definition, lawmakers copied language that already described insanity. The result was two definitions that say the same thing, one labeled “innocence” and one labeled “guilt.”

The outcome has been almost no Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity verdicts in the state. Families like mine are pushed into plea bargains, trading any hope of hospital care for the harsh certainty of prison. Add to that the final injustice: a long sentence to make up for the state and county's lack of Assisted Outpatient Treatment.

My son has now spent more than twelve years in prison. He is a gentle, disabled man who paces figure eights in his cell, trying to remember what it feels like to ride a bicycle, or trying not to think at all. There were a few years when he couldn't remember why he was there.

In 2018, state law allowed counties to adopt a new standard: disability, not just danger. Families can petition for Assisted Outpatient Treatment, which requires the patient to work with a treatment team and stay on medication while living in the community. Back in 2013, I had more than enough evidence to meet that standard. My son would have obeyed a judge’s order. It could have prevented everything.

But state government didn’t provide funding for Assisted Outpatient Treatment. Counties have to decide to implement the law and pay for a program. County administrators here are beginning to explore the option, and I want to thank them for those first steps. But we can’t stop there. If we keep waiting for danger, we will keep losing lives.

The truth is, AOT costs less than cycling people through jails and ERs. And of course, the real cost is measured in mothers lost, sons imprisoned, families destroyed.

I don’t believe the state will fix the Insanity Defense; the politics are too tangled. But we can fix the early steps, when other outcomes are still possible. We can stop pretending that “danger” is the right line to draw.

Danger comes in an instant. Disability builds for months, even years. If we intervene at disability, we prevent tragedy.

For my mother. For my son. For every family walking this same path: choose treatment before tragedy.