There was a time in my life when I might have felt differently about a court battle that is currently being waged in Wisconsin. As a newspaper reporter, I talked alot about “the public’s right to know.”
But now that I am the father of a son with a mental disorder — well, I’m a bit more skeptical.
Bryan Stanley murdered a custodian, a lay minister and a priest at the St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Onalaska, Wisconsin in February 1985. At the time, he was twenty-nine years old and mentally ill. He believed he was a prophet sent by God to cleanse the church after a priest allowed girls to read Scriptures during Mass.
Found not guilty —“by reason of mental disease” — Stanley was sent to the Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison in October 1985. Some fifteen years later in March 2009, doctors at the institute decided Stanley could be safely discharged. After thoroughly reviewing his case, La Crosse County Circuit Judge Ramona Gonzalez agreed. She approved his release but ordered specific monitoring restrictions.
described how important the HOPE Clubhouse in Ft. Myers was to her recovery. As with so many of our young people, Jourdan had excelled as a teenager and had gone to college with big plans – only to become sick. She was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder and not long after that she became so ill that she had to drop out. At one point, she was suicidal. When she called the local police during a manic episode, rather than getting help, she ended up getting arrested and jailed — “to be taught a lesson.” That experience — at the hands of unsympathetic and poorly trained sheriff’s deputies — resulted in her developing PTSD.
