Not Criminally Responsible

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That's fetchpet.com slash save. I've been telling stories about people who've done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle for more than a decade. But what you probably don't know is that while I was starting one of the very first true crime podcasts out there, I was also taking phone calls from my sister, from an Iowa prison. This fall, I'm going back out on tour, but it's going to be very different. From the criminal tours we've done before. Because this time, I'm telling a story I've never told before. My own. I'll be coming to Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Raleigh, Austin, Denver, Minneapolis, L.A., Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, and Seattle. Get tickets at thisiscriminal.com slash live. In 1992, a young man turned up at the police headquarters saying that he'd just fled the crime and that he wanted to turn himself in. This was in Port St. Joe, a small town along the Gulf Coast of Florida. The man told the police officer his name was Brian Bechtold and that he was 23 years old. The officer asked when the crime had taken place. Brian said he couldn't remember exactly. Maybe ten days ago, or maybe seven. The officer asked where he'd been seven days ago. Brian said he'd been at home in Maryland. And then the officer asked if there were any relatives home who would pick up the phone if they called. And he said, that's who I killed. I killed my parents. We're hearing from author Makita Brotman. She says at first, the police didn't believe Brian. He told them that he'd been, quote, insane for six or seven years. An officer asked why he did it. He said, I'm not sure exactly. There were a lot of things going on at the time. Brian was able to tell the officer some details. He said he'd used a 12-gauge shotgun and that his father had been eating breakfast and his mother had been sitting in a recliner. But he also said, quote, I'm not sure about what I remember and what happened. It seemed like I was possessed. It seemed like I wasn't alive. It seemed like something on TV or something like that. Like I wasn't there. Like it wasn't going on. And because he was being so confusing in his responses, the officers didn't know what to do. They thought maybe he was on drugs or maybe he was mistaken. Brian also told them that his parents traveled often, and had a mobile home in DeLand, Florida. An officer asked if it was possible his parents were just at the mobile home and hadn't been killed. Brian said, I'm sure it happened. But immediately after that, the officer asked, is there a possibility you dreamed it or thought it? And Brian replied, yes, there is. They went back and forth for a while. But then Brian said, I wish it didn't happen. I wish that something else happened. But I don't know. I don't think so. I think it happened. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Brian Bechtold was the fifth and youngest child of George and Dorothy Bechtold. Brian was much younger than the rest of his siblings. When he was born, his oldest sister was 17. The family moved around a lot. And Brian lived in three states before he was five. They eventually settled in Hillandale, Maryland. Tell me a little bit more about Brian's parents. Who were they? Well, his father, George, had a Ph.D. in engineering. He was kind of like a mechanical genius. He worked for the federal government on military technology. And Dorothy was a homemaker. George, the father, was really odd. He had a very bad temper. He could be terrifying to the children. One of Brian's sisters remembered seeing George punch Dorothy in the stomach when she was pregnant with Brian. Brian's older brother, George Jr., got in trouble often. And by the time he was 15, he and his father would get into physical fights. Once, outside, in front of their house. And it seemed as though George's violence seemed to make Dorothy, the mother, feel like using force was acceptable. And so she, too, began to physically abuse and also humiliate the children. Brian's sister, Kathy, told Makita that once their mother gave her a black eye from hitting her in the face with a belt buckle. Another time, Brian and Kathy were at their neighborhood swimming pool. And Brian was hit in the head by a toy that one of the other kids was playing with. When Kathy looked over, he was covered in blood. And Kathy immediately gathered him up, and they called Dorothy to take them to the hospital. But Dorothy said she was busy and couldn't deal with it right now. And so it was another friend's mother who took them to the hospital. But doctors said they needed a parent's permission to treat Brian. When the hospital tried to call Dorothy, the line was busy. Eventually, a doctor persuaded the operator to interrupt Dorothy's call to get permission to give Brian stitches. Another one of Brian's sisters, Carol, tried running away a few times, and once ended up joining a cult in New York called the Forever Family that, according to Carol, performed exorcisms. Once she sent Brian an audio recording of one of them, Makita says Brian was six or seven at the time and became fixated on the idea that he was going to be possessed by the devil. Makita says that most of Brian's siblings exhibited some signs of mental illness when they were children. For example, George Jr., the oldest child, was really turning into a replica of his father. He became violent, rude, abusive. Kathy, who Brian was very close to, started retreating inwardly and, was actually in and out of psychiatric hospitals for suicidal depression, and she actually attempted suicide numerous times. And basically, all the children just tried to get away from home as soon as possible, and Brian was left at home alone. Like I said, he was significantly younger than the other siblings, and he himself was depressed and never seemed to have any friends. And then, at one point, he mentioned his school counselor that he had thought about suicide. The counselor suggested he go to a psychiatric hospital, and his parents agreed. And Brian thought that they didn't really so much want to help him as just get him out of the house. By this point, Brian was 16. At the psychiatric hospital, he was diagnosed with depression. He was kept on a maximum security ward for children and put on lithium. He only stayed for 13 days before Dorothy changed her mind and brought him back home, against medical advice. According to Brian's records. For a while, things seemed to get a little better. He joined a karate studio and made a friend there. He thought maybe he could train to be a karate teacher after he finished high school. He started dating someone. By this time, Brian's father, George, had retired, and he and Dorothy decided to buy the mobile home in Florida. And they planned to spend five months there every year. But Brian wasn't invited. So even though he was only 18, he was going to be spending half the year alone in his family home in Maryland. Karate had been a great help for him for a while, but he injured his knee and could no longer go to karate. He started smoking more pot, doing PCP and LSD. The girl he'd been in love with broke up with him. He had a job delivering pizza, which he lost. He got arrested when marijuana was found in So it seemed as though things were really starting to fall apart for him. Brian was put on probation, and his parents decided to send him to rehab. Makita says he became paranoid and started to believe that other patients at the facility were secret agents that had been sent to spy on him. His doctors diagnosed him with schizotypal personality disorder and mixed substance abuse disorder. Brian made a New Year's resolution in January of 1988 to quit drugs completely. For a while, he isolated himself in his bedroom at his parents' house. With his knee injury, he knew it wasn't realistic to try to become a karate teacher. So he applied to college, and in 1990 was accepted by DeVry University in Georgia. He lived in a house with roommates, but pretty quickly he descended. He ended into paranoia. Again, he was very isolated and suspicious, and took to even, like, holding a knife behind his back when he answered the door because he was worried about people being against him. After his second trimester, his probation officer told him that he'd violated terms of his probation on the drug charge by moving out of state. Now, his father could easily have helped him work things out with the court so he could finish college. But instead, George simply stopped. He stopped paying his tuition, so Brian had to return home to Maryland. He had no choice but to move back in with his parents. Dorothy had breast cancer and wasn't doing well. She used an oxygen tank and was in a lot of pain. Brian noticed that she would drink a whole bottle of cough syrup every evening to knock herself out. Brian told Makita that a few times Dorothy asked him to help her die. Brian just took to living in the basement. He became, like, inert, apathetic, lost his appetite, started having bad dreams, began staying up all night, and slept only during the day. And when his parents went to Florida, he only left the house to buy groceries. He had a dog that he really loved. He walked his dog at night. But he said that he would notice, like, strange shadows moving under the trees, and he felt people seemed to be watching him. Certain cars would go past at certain times. He felt people were in disguise. He thought that someone had set up a device in the attic, like a machine that had a microphone that picked up his thoughts. And he thought there was a speaker system sending him subliminal messages. His parents said they'd see him talk on the phone without dialing a number. And then, believing that all these enemies were against him, he decided he was going to fight back. He bought a gun and kept. He kept it on him at all times, even to the point that he kept it with him in the shower. In February of 1992, Brian stopped sleeping. Makeda says at first it was on purpose, to stay alert in case he was attacked. But then, when he became exhausted, he still couldn't fall asleep. He became frustrated and started punching the walls in his room. He told Makeda he thought this went on for about a week. And then, early one morning, he finally started drifting to sleep. And suddenly, he was jolted awake by this violent noise, which was his father yelling in the kitchen downstairs. And Brian said he was almost mesmerized and almost in a trance. All he recalls is he got the gun, went downstairs and shot them both. And he later said it felt like his feet weren't touching the ground. He was just in this kind of strange, trance-like state. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Mint Mobile. Fall can be a great time to rethink some of your expenses. If you have a pricey phone bill, Mint Mobile can help you replace it with one of their affordable wireless plans. They start at just $15 a month. We have a friend who's going to help you. He switched to Mint Mobile and said it couldn't have been simpler. And he was able to keep using the same device and phone number. To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com slash phoebe. That's mintmobile.com slash phoebe. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash phoebe. That's it. There's no catch. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. 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If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get your free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era, How AI is Changing Everyday Work, at netsuite.com slash criminal. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash criminal. When he arrived at Port St. Joe in Florida, he was staying at a campsite. And at the campsite in the office, he found a King James Bible. He said that he read the Bible all day and all night for three days, doing nothing but walking his dog and reading the Bible. And he said that as he read, he felt like his sanity was starting to return. And he said he realized that he'd been under the influence of the devil, and now God was saving him. And Jesus wanted him to do the right thing, which was going to turn himself in. After interviewing Brian, the police in Port St. Joe contacted the police in Maryland. And officers were sent to George and Dorothy's house. And they found a dead woman sitting on a chair in the living room, and also a dead man lying face down on the kitchen floor. They'd both been killed by a shotgun, and they seemed to have been dead for about ten days. And the house. The house was just completely neglected. There were newspapers, candy wrappers, cereal boxes, and then things like a walking frame, an oxygen tank, medicine, pill bottles. And there was also a TV guide open to a page. And on the page, the words, Go to hell, had been. It seems like they'd been smeared, apparently, in blood. Brian was taken into custody in Florida. He spent four days in the Port St. Joe jail, and then was transferred to a hospital in Florida. He was transferred by an extradition company back to Maryland. Brian's sister, Kathy, told a detective that Brian had, quote, never been right in the head. Makita says two of Brian's siblings were furious with him. But the other two, including Kathy, felt some sympathy for Brian. Obviously, they were extremely shocked and grief-stricken. But they also understood that Brian had been seriously ill, and they knew. They knew that if he'd been in his right mind, he'd never have been capable of an act like this. And his sisters got him a lawyer who said immediately that he should be given a psychological evaluation. The lawyer they hired told Makita that his first impression of Brian was that he was a very pleasant young man, but obviously insane. He remembers that when he visited Brian at the detention center, quote, he was constantly aware of. And gave them sinister motivations. Air conditioning, doors closing, and things like that. He thought they were people watching him, or devices that had been set up to observe him. In July of 1992, a psychiatrist interviewed Brian. The psychiatrist concluded that Brian was suffering from a psychotic illness, namely schizophrenia paranoid type, at the time his alleged offenses and that he could not appreciate the criminality of his conduct and his ability to conform to the requirements of the law. The crime of killing one's own parent, or parasite, has been called, quote, the schizophrenic crime. I mean, people think that parasite is this terribly rare crime, but it's not. There are about 300 cases of parasite a year, and many of these are committed by young men like Brian, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, which begins, usually the onset is in the late teens to early 20s, usually in young men. And almost all of these incidents of parasite occur in dysfunctional or codependent families like Brian's. And again, often after years of physical, verbal, and sometimes psychological, sexual abuse on the part of one or both of the parents, Brian is very typical of such perpetrators. They tend to be a male in late teens or early 20s from a white middle-class family. Like Brian, they tend to be isolated without many friends, and the typical weapon is a gun kept in the home. And in most cases, when the murder occurs, the perpetrator reports, exactly like Brian, being in a dissociative state. And afterwards, if he. Can remember the crime at all, it seems like unreal or dreamlike or vague, almost as though it happened to someone else. So what did Brian's mental evaluation mean? What would happen next? Well, both the defense and the state psychiatrist found him NCR, which means not criminally responsible. So there was no trial, and he was committed to Clifton Perkins State. Which is Maryland's only maximum security forensic psychiatric facility. And he was determined to do well. He felt like he made some friends, and he liked having order and structure in his life. And he realized that, you know, he'd been so isolated that it was really important to have the company of other people. There seemed to be very minimal therapy. There was no one-on-one therapy, just group therapy. And there were some other non-clinical groups like choir, cooking, and so on. Cooking, art. Otherwise, there was not really anything to do. After just over a year at the hospital, Brian was moved from maximum security to medium security. He had more freedom. He could drink coffee and wear street clothes. And the rooms were more comfortable with air conditioning and real mirrors. After a couple of years, Brian's doctors considered moving him to minimum security. There, he'd be able. He'd be able to leave the hospital occasionally, as long as he was accompanied by a chaperone. But when Brian went before the hospital's review board, they decided he wasn't ready for minimum security. Instead, they thought he needed to be on more medication. He was already on an antidepressant. Now his doctor wanted to add an antipsychotic. Makita says Brian didn't want to be on an antipsychotic. But he hoped it would help him. He hoped it would help his chances of moving to lower security in the future. But within weeks, he felt very stiff. His brain was kind of fogged up. The days started to merge into one another. He'd sleep, wake up, eat, go back to bed, and started to sort of regress into a similar hallucinogenic, hypnotic state that he'd been in in the past, except it was a much more inert version of that state. Makita says around this time, Brian started thinking to himself, he shouldn't have pled not criminally responsible. If he was in prison instead of the hospital, he thought he wouldn't be forced to take such heavy medication. By this point, Brian had been at the hospital for more than three years. Makita says at the time, three years was the average length of time patients stayed at Perkins. People who'd committed similar crimes, Brian noticed, were getting out in four or five years. So he thought he'd be there around five, six years maximum, especially since he was obeying the psychiatrist. Things got a little better when a new psychiatrist started working on his ward. The psychiatrist swapped Brian to a lower dose of antipsychotic medication and seemed happy with the results. Brian was moved to minimum security. In the fall of 1997. And that doctor was so pleased with his progress that he actually said, a year on minimum, and in my opinion, you'll be ready to go home. So he was getting, he was very optimistic about his chances of leaving soon, especially since he saw so many other people leaving. And because he was really well behaved and responsiveness to therapy, he started to be allowed to take trips outside the hospital, supervised trips. All in all, he took 14 supervised trips outside the hospital when he was on minimum. But then, in a therapy session, his therapist announced there was something new he wanted to try with Brian. He'd been taking lessons in hypnosis, and he wanted to try to hypnotize him. When the therapist instructed him to lie down, Brian said no. After that, there was a note in his chart that said he'd, quote, refused therapy. And at the hospital, if a patient refused therapy, they were automatically moved to a higher security ward. So Brian was sent back to medium. The doctor he liked was no longer there. And it didn't take long for the new doctor to increase Brian's medication. This time it's worse. He actually becomes incontinent, and he feels like they're medicating him in a stupor. He's really frustrated because there seemed to be this constant parade of patients who arrive at Perkins and get discharged, and he's just staying in the same place or even going backwards. And he realizes that there's a strong possibility that he was going to end up as one of those old men that he saw wearing diapers who just slumped in front of the television for, you know, 20 years. And to him, that was a fate worse than death. What did he decide to do next? I mean, he's. He's really stuck here. He decides to get a weapon, take a hostage, and if he gets shot by the police, great. If he lives, he'll plead guilty and get sent to prison. Because many of the patients in Perkins who'd been in prison actually said they preferred it in prison. In prison, you're not being judged all the time. You know, if you don't want to come for breakfast, that's fine. You don't go for breakfast. It's not written in your file. It's not written in your file as, you know, some kind of psychological deficit that you're going through. So, also in prison, you have a set sentence, you know, it's 10 years or 20 years. And Brian was starting to see that his time at Perkins seemed to be endless. So, one day, finding himself alone in the laundry room, he managed to break a support strut off an ironing board. And this was a piece of metal about 14 inches long. And he filed it down by rubbing it against the grout in his shower. And he made a sling for it. And he started wearing it all the time under his clothes, waiting for a chance to use it. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Grooms. The best way to support your body is to develop good habits. Grooms makes that easy. Grooms are a community of people who are willing to support you. Grooms is a convenient, comprehensive formula in one daily pack of gummy bears. This isn't a multivitamin, a greens gummy, or a prebiotic. It's all of those things. And then some, at a fraction of the price. And the bonus is that it tastes great. While generic multivitamins only contain around 7 to 9 vitamins, Grooms has more than 20 vitamins and minerals. And 60 ingredients which include nutrient-dense whole foods. Grooms includes 6 grams of prebiotic fiber, which is more than 2 grams. And 2 cups of broccoli. It's a daily pack of gummies because you can't fit the amount of nutrients Grooms does into just one gummy. I just got some Grooms myself, and I really like them. I like that one daily pack does so many things. Save up to 61% off with free gifts with code CRIMINAL at grooms.co. That's spelled G-R-U-N-S dot C-O. G-R-U-N-S dot C-O. Support for Criminal comes from Shopify. As fall gets closer and life gets busier, you might feel like now isn't the right time to jump into an intense new process, like starting a business. But you don't always need to wait for the right time. Instead, you can create it. Shopify can help. It's the e-commerce platform responsible for millions of sales worldwide. They take care of everything you need to break out of the brainstorming phase and create your first successful sale. Shopify's templates and tools can help you build a great-looking website for your business. They're fast. No coding required. And if you have any questions, Shopify's built-in AI assistant sidekick is there to help you build, troubleshoot, and keep things going. moving. If you're ready to hear the sound of your first sale today, then head over to shopify.com slash criminal to start your free trial today. You can start your free trial at shopify.com slash criminal. That's shopify.com slash criminal. On Sunday, December 5th, 1999, around 3 p.m., Brian Bechtold stood just inside the door of the ward and waited. The nurses were just finishing their shift change, and Brian knew the guards were often distracted around this time. When a nurse unlocked the door, Brian held up the metal shank he'd made. He told the nurse to turn around and take him out of the ward. Two security guards tried to intercept Brian, but he told them to back off or he'd kill them. The guards didn't carry weapons, and they just let him go. Brian made it to the hospital lobby and then out into the parking lot. From there, he started running. He didn't make it far before the police found him walking along the side of a road. An officer approached him, drew his gun, and yelled for Brian to get down on the ground. Brian faced the police officer with his arms open and said, Come on, shoot me. You're going to have to shoot me. I'm not going back. You'd better shoot me in the head. After some back and forth with the officer, Brian turned around and ran down the street, and the officers followed him. At the end of the road, Brian turned, headed past a warehouse and towards some loading docks. He again told the officers, I'm not going back. What are you waiting for? Shoot me. Nearby there was a black pickup truck with a man inside. Brian said, I'm going to count to three. Then I'm going to stab this guy and take his truck, so you'd better get ready to shoot me. Brian started counting and moved towards the truck, and the officer shot him. He was shot once in the arm and twice in the stomach. He was airlifted to a hospital in Baltimore for surgery. After weeks recovering in another hospital, he was brought to police headquarters and interviewed. When they asked him if he knew why he was there, he said, I'm sure. I escaped from Perkins Hospital. I took a hostage. I tried to steal a car. I threatened a citizen. I got shot by police. He was charged with several counts of assault. But instead of going to jail to await trial, he was sent back to Perkins. And now things were much worse. He was considered a high security risk. He was put in restraints. He was tied down to a bed. He was bullied and harassed. He wasn't given any individual therapy because that was considered too dangerous. He wasn't allowed to go out into the courtyard or have visitors. He was put back on antipsychotic medication. After Brian's restraints were finally removed, he got in trouble when a guard saw him exercising. In a psych evaluation after Brian's escape attempt, the doctor conducting it said the results, quote, presented little evidence for the existence of psychotic processes. But Makita says the doctor saw the test results as proof that Brian was hiding his psychosis and therefore still had paranoid schizophrenia. In August of 2002, Brian's trial for his escape attempt took place. He was treated with kid gloves, and he was really impressed by this judge who he felt treated him just as he would treat anyone else. And Brian felt that he'd been treated fairly by an authority figure for the first time. Brian was sent back to Perkins. Makita says he was considered an escape risk, and by the spring of 2016, hadn't been allowed to go outside for nearly a year. He filed a complaint with the hospital's Patients' Grievance Committee, but was told, quote, fresh air is not a human right. Makita says, as far as she can tell, Brian is still at Perkins. Brian's sister Kathy has said she doesn't understand why Brian is still being held in Perkins, and has offered to take care of Brian if he were to be released. A forensic psychiatrist, not affiliated, with the hospital interviewed him four times, and found him free of psychotic thinking. He said, quote, We've reached out to the Maryland Department of Health, and haven't heard back. It just seems to me when you, you know, when you see all the steps that, you see all the other people that have been there, and let out of the hospital, you know, hard to try to figure out why he's still in. I think one of the main reasons why he's still in is that he doesn't have any support on the outside. His sister's been doing what she can, but, you know, she lives in Ohio. She has problems of her own. And, of course, after he's, you know, after he'd behaved in this, in this violent manner, taking people hostage and assaulting people, and, of course, his, his reputation at the hospital gets worse and worse and worse. And he's been at the hospital longer than most of the doctors and most of the staff. And so they don't remember him when he was young, and doing all he could to get along with the psychiatrist and following the hospital rules. They just know him now from his reputation as this, like, the only person to have escaped from the hospital in so many years, and this violent murderer who conceals weapons in his cell. I think there's this kind of, this, this idea that being found, you know, criminally insane or not liable because, you know, is, is the easier way out. You know, that's what you want. You want, this is, you know, let's, let's, maybe we can get, get by on this. This, this case shows a different side of that. Right. And in some cases, like Brian's case, and the case of many others who don't have support in the community, and who don't get consistent treatment in the hospital, it can actually be worse than prison because, mostly because of this terrible sense of limbo, that there's no end to it. It's not like you're going to do two years, 10 years, or 20 years. Or even, you know, if you have life without parole, you know, there's, there's no hope. You're going to get used to your incarcerated life. But this endless sense of hope, of possibility, is just absolutely devastating. And mind-numbing. But the other thing is being judged all the time. If he stays in his room to read, is that a sign of mental illness? If he keeps quiet in group therapy, is that a sign of mental illness? I mean, he's constantly being judged. And there's a sense in that, that you're not seen as an individual who makes their own choices, but you're seen as, you know, a mentally ill person who is exhibiting signs of mental illness. And that's really dehumanizing, I think. You're not being given your own agency. You're not being treated with dignity. Makeda Brotman's book is Couple Found Slain After a Family Murder. We'll have a link in our show notes. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers. are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, and Lena Sillison. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus. You can listen to Criminal, This is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus, you'll get bonus episodes. These are special episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr talking about everything from how we make our episodes to the crime stories that caught our attention that week to things we've been enjoying lately. To learn more, go to patreon.com slash criminal. We're on Facebook at This is Criminal and Instagram and TikTok at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is a podcast about crime. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. At T-Mobile, the new iPhone 18 Pro is here with a big leap in battery life. And you can get it at T-Mobile.com. Get it on us. With so many reasons to choose T-Mobile, you'll want to talk about it. At T-Mobile, you can get iPhone 18 Pro on them. Pass it on. 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