July 6, 2021
McMillan Audio
NetGalley
True crime, nonfiction, mental health
256 pages
ISBN:9781250757449
6/5/21-6/5/21
I received a complimentary audiobook from Macmillan Audio and NetGalley. My review is voluntary and unbiased.
Author states in the beginning that this is not a story about the crime per se but about the consequences for one person within mental health system. The author’s perspective is interesting given her background as a scholar with a PhD in English Literature as well as a psychoanalyst.
She describes the family history of the Bechtold family which included his parents, Dorothy and George, several sisters given their Catholic beliefs. Unfortunately, they weren’t the most attentive or supportive parents that their children needed. They moved a few times due to his father’s education and eventual PhD which secured him a stable job for the government.
Brian Bechtold, was their youngest kid, who they left alone most of the time. He endured years of abuse and neglect never being able to hold down a steady job. He turned to drugs which landed him in many unfortunate situations. When Brian was 22 yo, he killed both of his parents in their home. He fled and eventually turned himself in to the police explaining that the devil told him to kill his parents. Since his sobriety, he claimed God wanted him to make amends for his crime.
He was deemed schizophrenic and unable to stand trial for the 1992 murders. He was locked up at Clifton T Perkins Hospital Center where he would spend many more years than deemed reasonable compared to the crimes of other inmates. Brian never denied his crime and acknowledges that he wasn’t thinking clearly at that time. Over the years and many clinicians later, Brian would continue to be denied release on grounds that he was a threat to himself or others. For whatever reason, no one believed anything he had to say whether negative or positive. Oddly, the staff would twist his words to suit their purpose of keeping him at Perkins. He often prayed and attempted escape in order to be sent to prison where the living conditions were better than those at Perkins.
It’s a sad story of the injustices and prejudices within the mental health care system of that institution. They endured he stayed there despite his family and friends living too far away to visit. Through research and interviews, it seems the system unfairly over punished some while others were allowed release. The purpose of mental health confinement is to rehabilitate people to return them to society after receiving the help they need. In this case, this facility seemed to lack staff who would evaluate patients in the present without the prejudice of past mistakes.
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