<p>He changed his name and is now chair of the psychology department.</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>[Professor’s</a> secret: He killed his family - CNN.com Video](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/crime/2013/08/02/nr-interview-professor-linked-to-murder.cnn.html]Professor’s”>http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/crime/2013/08/02/nr-interview-professor-linked-to-murder.cnn.html)</p>
<p>Never should’ve been let out. Terrifying.</p>
<p>Wow! Talk about a huge skeleton in the closet–this guy had three, mom dad and sis!</p>
<p>I think if he was a risk to the community something would have happened by now.</p>
<p>Dunno, he certainly was a huge risk in 1967 to those who lived him. Pretty scary stuff! When does one get “cured” of schizophrenia? I don’t know this stuff.</p>
<p>Electron… not necessarily.</p>
<p>From CNN, it seems he admitted he committed his crime, was found to be not guilty by reason of insanity by doctors of the time, institutionalized, found to be well enough to be released sometime later, changed his name in an effort to put his past behind him, pursued his education to the doctoral level, and built a successful decades long career without any further issues.</p>
<p>One troubling thing about these type of notoriety stories and the discussions they often generate prompts the following questions:</p>
<p>Do we continue to effectively ostracize/punish someone as a society in the court of public opinion after he/she has served his/her time…especially if it was found that he/she was not guilty by insanity by the courts/doctors of the time and has led an unblemished life since? </p>
<p>What do these types of discussions and digging up a notorious past which has been settled legally say about our/our society’s capacity for providing “second chances”…especially for those who have demonstrated that they have reformed to the point of being model citizens for decades since that crime/mistake?</p>
<p>Eerily similar to Amy Bishop. She “accidentally” shot her brother as a young woman, went on to become a successful academic, then shot to death 3 colleagues when they denied her tenure. </p>
<p><a href=“Professor Is Charged in ’86 Killing of Her Brother - The New York Times”>Professor Is Charged in ’86 Killing of Her Brother - The New York Times;
<p>How can we know if someone is sufficiently stable after such a horrific act of violence? At the very least they should be required to undergo periodic assessments.</p>
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<p>With regards to being declared not guilty by reason of insanity and then later being considered well enough to be released after treatment, this is not always indicative of being “cured”. A famous case that comes to mind is Edmund Kemper, who was sent to a psychiatric facility after killing his grandparents at the age of 15. He was very intelligent, befriended his psychologist, and convinced his doctors that he was well enough to be released. He then went on to kill six women and his mother.</p>
<p>I’m not saying it’s the same thing by any stretch of the imagination, but very smart people can game the system. Doctors declaring him guilty by insanity and then releasing him later presumably because they don’t believe he is a danger does not necessarily mean that he isn’t one. I do think having a long record of no problems is reassuring, but it’s a complicated issue and it’s understandable how it can make people uneasy.</p>
<p>No, sorry, this isn’t just a matter of “serving his time”. You cannot cure mental illness- especially one severe enough to cause you to kill your entire family. You can manage some of them, but a cure? No. And we don’t know enough about mental illness to know whether or not someone is going to come unhinged again. I’m not willing to put innocent people at risk, sorry. </p>
<p>I do feel for those with mental illnesses. MOST people with mental illnesses are NOT violent at all. That is a completely separate issue from this man though.</p>
<p>^
Actually, not all mental illnesses are chronic. People can indeed, for example, have a singular bout of depression (often induced by major stressors) and than never have one occur. This case is obviously different than that, but saying that all mental illness is “forever” isn’t true, either.</p>
<p>When I read about these cases I never want the person let out of jail but he it has been over 45 years and there is no evidence he has ever done anything wrong since.</p>
<p>I’m all for being extremely cautious with releasing the allegedly cured, but what can be done with this guy? He’s not doing anything which would get him committed. You could fire him from his job but that doesn’t do anything to affect whether or not the general public is safe. Whether or not he deserved to serve a longer sentence is moot, he can’t be tried again.
Many state mental hospitals have been closed and clearly there are people walking around who shouldn’t be. Perhaps this guy was never mentally ill to begin with. Also, given his age, in some states this could have been handled as a juvenile offense and he could have been released even sooner. Leaving off whether his sentence and release was appropriate, what can you do about it now?</p>
<p>Amy Bishop had a lifelong pattern of clearly bizarre behavior. This person evidently does not.</p>
<p>As I’ve mentioned before, a member of my HS class killed four members of his family during an apparent psychotic break, and was found not guilty by reason of insanity and confined to a state hospital. I recently found out that he was released years ago, and has married. I would be very afraid if I were in his vicinity, especially since there is some possibility that he was the perpetrator of another murder a year or two before he killed his family. But one gathers that nothing has happened…</p>
<p>It is definitely difficult to know what to do with people like this.</p>
<p>Would you want to be the person who told this guy he was fired?</p>
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<p>They may want to carefully think on that as doing so at this point is likely to give that Prof strong grounds to sue on the basis of discrimination against those who suffer mental illness/formerly suffered from mental illness.</p>
<p>I think it is very positive that he has turned his life around and has a second chance as an adult, after the crime he committed as a teen. One does have to wonder how he could be schizophrenic and now be fine, but who knows. </p>
<p>I do have a problem with him teaching psychology. It just doesn’t seem right for some reason, or as a suitable candidate for that sort of job. Had the university known of his psychological past and crime, I can’t imagine him being hired for that particular job.</p>
<p>6 years doesn’t seem like much of a sentence for killing 3 people. If that nut job in Colorado who shot up the movie theater is legally insane would you be comfortable with letting him out in a few years if he gets therapy? Or should the victims family be honored and him put in jail to pay the consequence of taking other peoples lives.</p>
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<p>Dr. John Nash of “Beautiful Mind”/Economics Nobel Prize fame has been fine despite managing his schizophrenia for decades after his institutionalizations.</p>
<p>Would he have any basis for suing, considering he changed his name and hid his past? couldn’t the university fire him on the basis of fraud?</p>
<p>Not that they’re about to, considering they support him in getting past “his childhood trauma.”</p>