Psychiatry And The Creation Of Senseless Violence in Missouri
The Connection Between Psychiatric, Mind-Altering Drugs And Acts Of Random Senseless Violence
Cases of violent crimes compiled by the International Coalition for Drug Awareness recorded more than 950 acts of violence over an eight-year period, committed by people of all ages taking SSRI antidepressants. This includes 362 murders; 45 attempted murders; over 100 acts of violence and assault, including 13 school shootings; 5 bomb threats or bombings; 24 acts of arson; 21 robberies; 3 pilots who crashed their planes; and more than 350 suicides and suicide attempts. This is more than coincidental and experts say that it warrants government investigation and intervention.
“There are many reports and studies confirming that SSRI antidepressants can cause violence, suicide, mania and other forms of psychotic and bizarre behavior,” says psychiatrist Peter Breggin in a study of SSRIs, published in International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine in 2003. The fact that drug regulatory agencies such as the FDA and Health Canada require SSRI packaging to include the warning of “anger, aggression, and violence indicates a concern that antidepressant reactions can pose a danger to others,” Dr. Breggin stated. Further, “From agitation and hostility to impulsivity and mania,” he warns, “antidepressant-induced behaviors is identical to that of PCP, methamphetamine and cocaine—drugs known to cause aggression and violence.”
In 1997, sales of psychotropic drugs topped $1.5 billion, double the figure of two years earlier. In 2000, international sales of antipsychotic drugs reached $6 billion. In 2001, antidepressant sales climbed to $12.5 billion. Today, that figure is near $20 billion. Sales of all psychotropic drugs worldwide are near $40 billion. In short, the rise in senseless violence is date-coincident with the increased use of psychiatric mind-altering drugs.
Consider the following:
Today, more than 17 million children worldwide have been prescribed psychiatric drugs so dangerous that medicine regulatory agencies in Europe, Australia and the United States have issued warnings that antidepressants, for example, can cause suicide and hostility in children and adolescents. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also issued a warning that stimulant drugs, such as Ritalin and Concerta can cause suicidal as well as violent, aggressive and psychotic behavior, and that these same drugs can cause heart attacks, stroke and sudden death.
Of these 17 million, more than 10 million children are in the United States, being prescribed addictive stimulants, antidepressants and other psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs for educational and behavioral problems. Methylphenidate (Ritalin) is an amphetamine-like drug widely prescribed to children for the contrived mental disease, “Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder” (ADHD), which the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) places in the same category as opium, morphine and cocaine.
Even Ritalin’s manufacturer warns that “frank psychotic episodes can occur” with abusive use, while the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) states that the major complication of Ritalin withdrawal is suicide. It is important to note that as far back as between 1988 and 1992 alone there were reports of more than 90 children and adolescents who had suffered suicidal or violent self-destructive behavior while on the newer antidepressant Prozac, an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor).
However, as the following will clearly show, the connection between psychiatric drugs, violence and suicide is far from being limited to children.
DEATHS FROM SENSELESS VIOLENCE
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) has a data base of hundreds of cases of violence that span the last 15 years. The following are but a few examples from the state of Missouri of acts of violence connected to psychiatric treatment. Also included are Missouri Citizens who have passed on while in the custody or care of psychiatry.
1. Al Kerth, a respected civic and community leader who was instrumental in bringing Major League Football to St. Louis, committed suicide. After receiving psychiatric treatment for many years he used a shotgun to kill himself in his downtown St. Louis office.
2.-5. Raymond Wood used a shotgun to kill his pregnant wife Tina, 31 and his children Jared, 10, Joshua, 8, Emily, 7, and Hannah, 5 in their Warrensburg home. Two other daughters, ages 3 years and 18 months, were wounded in the shootings. Wood had repeatedly been in mental institutions since 1985 before killing his family.
6. A six-year-old child from Cole County murdered his grandfather James Zbinden with a .22-caliber rifle. The boy had returned from a mental health treatment program just days before the slaying.
7. Nan Wyatt, well-known St. Louis radio personality, was shot to death by her husband Thomas Erbland, Jr. in their bedroom in Twin Oaks with a .357 Magnum while their 7-year-old son waited downstairs. Erbland had been receiving psychiatric drugs and counseling just a month prior to the murder of his wife.
8. Johnny Johnson kidnapped 6-year-old Cassandra Williamson from her home in Valley Park, attempted to rape her and then killed her with a blunt object. Johnson had been in a psychiatric facility and was released in January of that year.
9. Joshua Wolf used a rifle to shoot his grandmother, Carol Jean Lindley of Cape Girardeau County, in the head, killing her. Mrs. Lindley, who was 56, had raised Joshua. Two days later he set fire to the house to cover up the murder. Joshua had a history of psychiatric treatment.
10. Steven Marberry of Cape Girardeau committed suicide after attempting to rob a pharmacy at gunpoint for the prescription psychiatric drug, Xanax. Marberry had just been released from another in a series of psychiatric drug rehabilitation programs when he committed suicide.
11.-13. Dennis Irby shot Jeffrey Sexton of Des Peres in the head twice, killing him. Thirty-eight years earlier Irby had shot his father in the head with a shotgun in St. Louis, then beat and stabbed his mother to death. He was released from a mental hospital 5 years after the earlier murder.
14.-15. Max Parmeley of De Soto bludgeoned his mother, 62-year-old Elva J. Parmeley to death and critically injured his father, 67-year-old Clarence Parmeley. His father died later of the injuries. Max Parmeley had been receiving extensive psychiatric treatment for years.
16. Robert McGrath murdered his father Floyd McGrath by stabbing him 40 times at Floyd McGrath’s Maplewood home. He also attacked and wounded his mother. McGrath had been treated for over 25 years at area psychiatric facilities.
17.-21. Harold Lingle helped strangle to death pregnant Erin Vanderhoef and her children: Jimmy Vanderhoef, 11; Christopher Franklin, 10; and Darlene Vanderhoef, 8; in their Springfield home. Erin Vanderhoef’s unborn child was also killed. Harold Lingle had a history of psychiatric treatment.
22. Tolliver J. Simonton suffocated his 8-year-old son at their home in Marshall. Simonton, a counselor at the Marshall Middle School, had been receiving psychiatric treatment a short time before he committed the murder.
23.-24. Paul Eric Turner fatally shot his wife, wounded his father-in-law and then committed suicide all in front of his two minor children in Neelyville. He had just been released from the Southeast Missouri Mental Health Center for the second time in 2 weeks.
25. Jeremiah Johnson of Marshfield slashed his sister’s throat, killing her. He was using the psychiatric hallucinogenic drug LSD at the time.
26.-31. Joe Brinell of Springfield was piloting a Cessna Citation that crashed, killing six people. Toxicology tests showed the psychiatric drug Doxepin in his system. Doxepin is most commonly used to treat depression and can cause dizziness, drowsiness and blurred vision.
32. Steven J. Lieneke of Morrison, Missouri committed suicide after being given psychiatric drugs for depression. He had sought help after becoming despondent over the 9/11 attacks on New York.
33. Sandra Menard died while under psychiatric care during her court ordered involuntary commitment at South Pointe Hospital. Ms. Menard was prescribed contra indicated drugs and died from aspiration pneumonia. Her Death Certificate listed her cause of death as heart failure yet no heart damage was recorded in the autopsy report.
34. Christopher Shanklin committed suicide while under psychiatric suicide watch during his involuntary incarceration at the psychiatric unit of South Pointe Hospital. Mr. Shanklin using obtained tools removed the barred window of the day room in the psychiatric unit and jumped four stories to his death. Though he died on the side walk it was written that he passed on in the emergency room.
35. Juanita Drey died after receiving ECT (Electro-Convulsive Therapy) which she was coerced into by her psychiatrist. Mrs. Drey was never told of the serious side effects of ECT and she eventually relented after months of pressure and intimidations from her psychiatrist. She specifically stated in her affidavit that she was tortured by her psychiatrist.
36.-37. Gary Rose and Don Williamson passed on under suspicious circumstances while involuntarily incarcerated at the state psychiatric facility at Farmington, MO. They were both under the care of the state psychiatrists.
38. George Holmes was beaten to death at the Bellefontaine Rehabilitation Center (Missouri Department of Mental Health) in St. Louis. Mr. Holmes, a mildly retarded person, made a phone call the day before he was beaten to death pleading for his life. No individual has been charged in his death.
39.-44. Five (5) individuals, Robert Meek, Roger Evans, James Heman, Victor Silby and Daryl Strawbridge, have passed on while involuntarily incarcerated by the psychiatrists of the St. Louis Rehabilitation Center on Arsenal Street. Repeated requests for further information have not been answered.
45. Carla Weitzel of Columbia, a former student activist instrumental in getting the curators of the University of Missouri to withdraw their investments in South African apartheid companies, died after a suicide attempt. She had a history of depression, which is usually treated with psychiatric drugs.
46. David Ray Martin lured 11-year-old Selma Ducanovic from her home near Bevo Mill by telling her the house was on fire. He took her to Horseshoe Lake State Park near Granite City, Illinois and shot her in the back of the head. Martin had a history of psychiatric treatment.
47. Nora Belanger committed suicide in her room at St. Francis Hospital in Maryville, Missouri, while on suicide watch in the mental health unit. Ms. Belanger had already recently made an attempt to take her life. She had a history of psychiatric treatment for depression.
48.-51. Steven Ray Thacker murdered Polk County, Missouri resident Forrest Reed Boyd and people in two other states. Thacker had a history of psychiatric treatment and had been given the psychiatric drug lithium.
52. Mary Karch of Fort Wood killed her infant girl Elizabeth Powers Karch and attempted to suffocate her 5-year-old son Thomas with a plastic bag, then attempted suicide. She had a history of psychiatric treatment and usage of the psychiatric drug lithium.
53. Emil M. Bachman attacked police with a hunting knife, forcing them to shoot him. He died hours later at the hospital. Bachman had been under psychiatric care since the early 1960s and had been prescribed an “extensive list” of psychiatric drugs.
54. Michael Rogenhofer, 61, was found dead on the shore of Pelican Island in the Missouri River a month after he had walked away from the Pathways group home in O’Fallon. He had a history of psychiatric treatment and was on conditional release from St. Louis State Hospital.
55. Kimberly R Hennessey of Raytown shot and killed her husband with her 7-year-old son in the house. She at first claimed her son had accidentally shot his father, Terry M. Roehl, but later confessed to the shooting. Kimberly has a history of psychiatric treatment and psychiatric drug use.
56. Jose Jaime stabbed and killed his cousin Ramiro Alvarez and his cousin’s girlfriend Martha Leon in their home in the Stonegate apartments in St. Louis County. Jose had a history of psychotic episodes and psychiatric drug treatment.
57. Deborah Jean Mathews of St. Joseph committed suicide after repeated attempts to get help from the Family Guidance Center psychiatric facility. Ms. Mathews had been prescribed numerous psychiatric drugs and had stated Family Guidance Center had killer her spirit.
58. In July, 1999, James Dinardi of Columbia, Missouri, died after cutting his neck with a chainsaw to show a woman in Maine how much he cared for her. James had a history of suicide attempts, from which we can only surmise that he also had a history of psychiatric treatment.
59. Robert Lee Proud plead guilty to the first degree murder of his three-year-old niece Ciarra Resinger near Richwoods, Missouri. Robert, who was taking psychiatric drugs for a hyperactive condition, said “She was making me angry and I couldn’t take it anymore” and “I went up to the cliff and I just threw her off there.”
60. Roberta Burrell of Cape Girardeau stabbed her mother, Opal Baugus, at least 41 times with a butcher knife, killing her. Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle stated Roberta had a 3-inch-thick file with mental health centers.
61. Leonardo Drisdel, a WGNU radio host in St. Louis, bludgeoned Cassandra Kovack to death in her apartment with his bare hands. Drisdel had a history of psychiatric treatment and had been prescribed 3 different psychiatric drugs.
62. Erin Mace, a senior at Lindbergh high school was abducted, raped and then strangled by the refused lover Alex Stirlen. Stirlen admitted that he stole a bottle of his friend’s attention deficit disorder medicine and spent a week at St. Anthony’s Hyland Behavioral Center where he was treated for his “disease” before he committed the murder.
63. In 1994 Matt McBride stabbed his parents to death in Glendale, Missouri, hours after being released from a mental hospital. After Matt was released from St. Anthony’s and murdered his parents, his psychiatrist went on to commit suicide. His brother Mark was instrumental in passage of the McBride Bill, signed into legislation by Governor Mel Carnahan (1996). The bill made involuntary commitment easier, further eroding our human rights.
CONCLUSION
These are horror stories all which happened in the state of Missouri. On the surface, the idea of psychiatric treatment, tranquilizers or antidepressants creating hostility and violence may not make sense. After all, they are supposed to make people better, calm and quiet. But the reality is that they can and do create such adverse effects. This is called “Drug Induced Psychosis.”
The scientific evidence, only a small part of which is presented above, is overwhelming. Psychiatric treatments such as drugs, electric shock and involuntary commitment are supposed to assist people who need help, not kill them. Too often, delinquency, suicide and violence have been falsely attributed to a child’s “mental illness,” when, in fact, the very methods used to “treat” such “illness” are the cause of the problem.
In addressing the rise in senseless violence in schools and in society, the role of psychiatric drugs must be investigated.
Get the Facts. Fight Back.
