Marty was in our custody for almost two years before his case was finally decided. During that time he went from normal and chatty to solemn and quiet, from sane and rational to bizarre and unstable, from tearful to jovial and back around again. This was not all that unusual for an inmate with a mental health condition. I had seen it before; the emotional roller coaster of mentally ill people can be astonishing and Marty’s array of daily mood swings and activities were not really out of the norm. What was uncommon, in my opinion, was that those emotions, mood swings and bouts of insanity seemed to coincide with visits from his psychiatrist.

We had to house Marty in with the sex offenders and child molesters, although whenever he began hearing the voices he was relocated into the infirmary until the moment passed. It was a high profile case and the killing of his son put him in danger from other inmates, so it was deemed he would be safest living with the other Protective Custody inmates. He got along okay for the most part during his stay with us. He not only gained about eighty pounds but he also watched football and baseball on the TV with the other guys, went out to the recreation yard regularly, joked with the officers, enjoyed visits from friends and clergy and learned how to play gin rummy and chess with his cellmates.

He also learned how to gauge the dates his psychiatrist would be coming to visit. About two days before each impending court ordered visit, Marty would begin to report the voices were threatening him again. He would stop talking or involving himself with others, would sit on his bunk and stare at the wall and take on the appearance of someone deep in a catatonic trance.
The psychiatrist who came to deal with Marty must have been a truly amazing doctor. Actually there were several doctors and psychologists who were involved in the case and for the most part, the ones who visited Marty in jail were true miracle workers. Not two hours after they visited and Marty was returned, silent and staring, to his cell, his voices would vanish and he would be back watching Roadrunner cartoons with his cellmates. I was amazed. Never had I seen such medical miracles!

I am not a doctor. I am not even a licensed psychologist, but I am capable of watching a person go from mental illness to mental normalcy in a period of an hour or so and finding it a bit unusual. I had a lot of opportunity to talk with Marty and he was almost always quiet, polite and willing to chat but he virtually never said one word about his parents or son. He did not seem capable of harming them, or of harming anyone for that matter. On the other hand, he did not attempt to hide his crime or ever deny his involvement, and there was no good motive for him to have committed such a travesty. It was a puzzle that was never solved to my satisfaction. Was he lead by voices to slaughter his parents and son? This is rather uncommon for schizophrenics; they rarely harm anyone except themselves, but still…

Marty did not go to prison, he was sent to the state hospital for an indeterminate period of time. Whatever demons were plaguing him 14 years ago have evidently left for greener pastures because, to my knowledge, he has not been back in the jail system and I am fairly sure he has been released from the state hospital. I have never forgotten him, however, nor have I forgotten the bloody photos of his four-year-old son and the mystery that surrounded it all.

I mentioned Marty in this memoir only because it is true that the mind is a strange thing. Most people would say a man would have to be insane to kill his family that way, but the Marty I knew for almost two years in jail was as normal as anyone else behind those bars, except when the psychiatrist was due. So, who can say? Regardless of what caused him to “snap” on that awful day, the result is that he is now living the rest of his life without his parents or the love of his son. I suppose that is punishment enough for any crime, premeditated or driven by a demon. And we will never really know for sure.