I read two interesting articles in the newspaper this morning. The first was about the original mass murderer, Howard Unruh, who in 1949 walked down a street in Camden, New Jersey, and killed 13 people in 20 minutes. Psychiatrists at the time tried to find out why he did it by giving him “truth serum.”
On Oct. 20, 1949, Camden County Court Judge Bartholomew A. Sheehan signed the final order of commitment for Unruh after a team of four psychiatrists classified him as a case of “dementia praecox, mixed type, with pronounced catatonic and paranoid coloring.”
In modern parlance, he was a paranoid schizophrenic, a classification that would appear again and again in Unruh’s records.
Read Inside the mind of a killer, on Philly.com.
The other article discusses an unintended consequence of many criminals receiving life sentences—a growing population of prisoners with dementia. The California Men’s Colony is teaching some inmates to care for the elderly prisoners—and they are succeeding.
Heriberto G. Sanchez, chief psychologist of the California Men’s Colony, said prisoners “were appreciative that someone from the outside world thought they could do this.” One wrote in an evaluation, “Thank you for allowing me to feel human.”
Read Life, with dementia, on NYTimes.com.
Ox Drover
When I worked in a freestanding public mental health clinic (mostly for the chronically mentally ill) some of my patients were paranoid schizophrenic and also ex convicts. I sent for the medical records for several of them from the prison system (Arkansas state) and the “treatment” they received there was barbaric at BEST.
Texas and Arkansas do their very best to parole patients who are old and/or sick or demented either to the family (first choice) or to a medicaid nursing home bed. No matter what their crime is unless they have a “life without parole” stipulation on their sentence.
Seriously ill prisoners are generally given parole to get the cost of their care off the backs of the prison system. Any needed surgeries except extreme emergencies are never given unless the family raises heck. I did that for my son once when he needed corrective orthopaedic surgery from an injury to his shoulder he received in a fight.
Dental care is extraction of decayed teeth…forget fillings or cleaning.
I applaud this kind of program and I think that training inmates to care for older and weaker inmates in this fashion is a good way to take care of aging and demented inmates as well as give “jobs” to other inmates.
Male Alzheimer’s patients, and especially in the early stages of dementia, where the person slightly realizes, but wants to deny, “slipping mentally” is the worst stage. The males especially may become combative, and if they are physically strong can be dangerous to care givers.
I have been in a caregiver role with this kind of patient, both with those demented and those with head injuries. New government mandated rules for restraining a patient such as this in hospitals and nursing homes (and I bet in prisons as well, but don’t know) make it doubly difficult to care for this type of patient safely. I can’t even imagine being a prison guard (with a GED) trying to deal with this kind of belligerent convict. How is a prison guard to distinguish between a convict with early dementia and one who is just acting out?
My attorney in Texas assures me that my son Patrick will be let out on parole if he ages out or gets seriously sick. That’s not reassuring to me.
The family in the article who declined to get their family member paroled to them I think is very wise. The system tries very hard to get the families to take responsibility for the convict, demented or not, when they are paroled. That way the system doesn’t have to bear the expense of doing so. Families are conned into feeling responsible for taking back their dysfunctional or psychopathic relative into their homes and lives again…and again…and again.
beth
Hi, brand new here and would like to post a question. How do I do that? Thanks.
witsend
Beth,
Welcome. Post your question the same way you just did 🙂
skylar
Hi Beth,
just ask. The same way you already did!
Oxy,
I read the articles and the confession of the serial killer.
He doesn’t seem to have schizophrenia to me because it doesn’t appear that he has hallucinations. His paranoia is not based on “voices”, but on the actual fact that people didn’t like him and treated him badly.
Does paranoid schizophrenic present differently – without hallucinations?
The guy does seem to be schizotypal along with being a total spath. He had fantasies of sex with his mommy and he hated her at the same time. And he also had sex with men. Spaths all have mommy issues. And one of the guys he killed made fun of him for sponging off his mother.
Mother issues and parasitical lifestyle are spath red flags. If I see someone doing that, along with bizarre behavior, I wouldn’t make fun of them. I’d move slowly toward the door.
Ox Drover
Welcome, Beth! Post your questions anywhere.
Sky, there’s of course NO way to “diagnose” anyone over the internet or from a news article, but that doesn’t keep me from having an “opinion” on what things appear to be.
Remember that article that Donna posted about the guy murdering his wife, and we all jumped on it and presumed the guy had dementia..elderly etc….and it turned out he probably was a high level arsehole (psychopath?) and maybe with dementia or diminished judgment as well….the best we can tell from an article or two.
I was just commenting in my comments above of my former patients who were schizophrenic AND ex convicts and how badly their medical records seemed to indicate they were treated in prison.
Plus, even psychopaths can become demented from organic brain syndrome or whatever….continual head injuries which they are seeing now in NFL and other sports related hobbies or occupations. The chronic injuries of all kinds in even high school football made me not want my sons to participate….look at joe Namath, the poor guy could hardly walk the last I heard or saw him on TV…a total cripple….for what, fame and money?l
When I worked for an orthopaedic sports medicine doc for about a year and a half I saw 15 year old girls who had had multiple bone fractures….and even withh a fracture unhealed the stage moms wanted them back in competition for olympics….by 25 they were cripples from multiple bone fractures in their spines, knees, ankles hips etc. It is BAD enough when we do this to our race horses much less our children.
Anyway, off that stump…back to the subject. There are multiple mental illnesses AND personality disorders which can contribute to criminal behavior…several are schizophrenia, bi polar, ADHD etc. and having ONE mental illness or disorder does not mean you can’t have one or more others. The Trojan Horse Psychopath had 3 that I know of Bi-polar, ADHD and Antisocial personality disorder and he was a pedophile to boot. What can you say ??? No impulse control and mania and no conscience? What a recipe for disaster that is!
skylar
Oxy,
I know that these PD’s and mental illnesses can be comorbid and that they can also contribute to crime. I was just asking if in YOUR PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE, you had ever encountered any person who was professionally diagnosed as schizophrenic but who did not appear TO YOU to have visual or auditory hallucinations. I’m asking you because you’re the only person I know who has dealt with nuts on a professional basis and you had access to their records so you could see what the official diagnosis was.
But yeah, the guy who murdered his wife was a no-brainer for me. I recognized the pattern of lies to be spath and there are lots of old spaths out there. AFAIK, though, there hasn’t been an official diagnosis yet. I’d be curious what the professionals say.
witsend
Skylar,
I read the articles & confession too…..But I wondered if in fact his paronoia was due at least partially because he DID
hear “voices” in his head. The voices along with the possibility that people were also talking “bad” about
him in reality.
In this delusional mental state it would be hard to determine even for a professional (back then especially) what this guys “perception” of reality was real & what wasn’t real.
What I found to be interesting about this case is that once the police sat him down for a confession he spilled his guts. As if he didn’t really know or understand how incriminating what he was saying really was. It certainly doesn’t sound like any of the confessions I see on 48 hours! These criminals usually don’t spill their guts even when their DNA is found all over the scene!
I don’t know what the actual statistics are….But I do believe that years ago there were more people that avoided life sentences/death penalty by claiming the insanity plea…You don’t hear much any more of criminal acts avoiding prison sentences by copping insanity pleas as more information
is known about mental illnesses & personality disorders.
Ana
Hi Skylar & Oxy,
You both know what a crazy state I live in (MA). Well, this govna is INSANE!! Now, he is putting forth legislation for…wait… Assisted living facilities for aging inmates! ARRrggggh
I haven’t had the time to research and find out who he knows in prison yet. But it’s got to be a relative, friend, friend of a friend, kid of a friend/old guy of a friend etc….I’ll find out. Although, it won’t do me a bit of good cause you two know that if you go after a criminal here, you will go to jail/get fined. What a lovely state. Spaths are running the show.
skylar
Ana,
or maybe he’s just planning for his retirement…? just in case.
😆
skylar
Witsend,
there’s another short article here:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120226_Kevin_Riordan__Decades_later__Camden_mass_killer_still_poses_a_mystery.html?viewAll=y
Nothing about the killer suggests he was crazy, just pissed off. He has a perfect recollection of each person he killed except for one. He doesn’t rant or say he hears voices.
In 1964 he asks to be released because he’s not crazy anymore.
Perhaps the news articles are incomplete.