May 31, 2025 • 40 mins
Cindy Murphy shares the heartbreaking story of her son Tristan, who struggled with schizophrenia and died by suicide while incarcerated after being handed a chainsaw during a prison work detail.
Through her grief, Cindy has become a powerful advocate for mental health reform in the criminal justice system, working to pass the Tristan Murphy Act in Florida.
• Tristan developed schizophrenia in his 30s, unusually late compared to typical onset in teens or early 20s
• After his first psychotic episode, Tristan spent 8 months in jail before being declared incompetent to stand trial
• When properly medicated, Tristan functioned well and maintained a relationship with his children
• Florida ranks #1 in mental health needs but #49 in providing mental health services
• The Tristan Murphy Act aims to identify mental health issues within 24 hours of arrest and divert people to treatment
• Approximately 30% of prison inmates have mental health issues
• New treatments like long-acting injectable medications can help people with schizophrenia maintain stability
• The documentary "The Warehouse: The Life and Death of Tristan Murphy" is available on YouTube
If you know anyone that would like to tell their story, send them to tonymantor.com/contact with their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. Please tell everyone everywhere about Why Not Me ? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide
The World, the conversations we're having, and the inspiration our guests give to everyone that you are not alone in this world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to why Not Me ?
The World Podcast, hosted byTony Mantor, broadcasting from
Music City, usa, nashville,tennessee.
Join us as our guests tell ustheir stories.
Some will make you laugh, somewill make you cry.
Their stories Some will makeyou laugh, some will make you
(00:30):
cry.
Real life people who willinspire and show that you are
not alone in this world.
Hopefully, you gain moreawareness, acceptance and a
better understanding for autismaround the world.
Hi, I'm Tony Mantor.
(00:53):
Welcome to why Not Me?
The World Humanity OverHandcuffs the Silent Crisis
special event.
Joining us today is CindyMurphy.
She's here to share the storyof her son, tristan, who battles
schizophrenia.
Tristan was managing well onmedication for some time, but
his condition worsened Followingan incident where he took a
(01:13):
pickup truck and crashed it intoa pond.
He was arrested and sent toCharlotte County Jail.
He was later convicted,transferred to the Florida
Department of Corrections andassigned to work duty.
Tragically, his story endedwith a loss of his life while in
jail.
This heartbreaking experiencehas inspired her to advocate for
change.
She is now working to supportlegislation in Florida to help
(01:36):
others.
Her story is powerful and we'regrateful to have her here to
share it.
Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, you're welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I understand Tristan developed signs of schizophrenia
later in life which, as we know, is fairly uncommon.
Could you provide somebackground on how this condition
emerged?
Were there any early signs inhis younger years?
And if there was, how did itultimately develop with his life
?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Well, you know Tristan, you know he's unusual
because he did haveschizophrenia, but he didn't
develop it at a young age likemost people do.
Most people start havingsymptoms when they're in their
teens or early 20s.
Looking back at the early partof his life, he did have a
learning disability, but it wasvisual motor integration skills.
He was really really good atschool.
He was always a little bit ofhis own little quirky
(02:25):
personality, I guess.
So, as he was growing up, a lotof times we wondered whether he
had Asperger's because you know, he just had a lot of those
kind of characteristics andstuff.
But otherwise he was just anormal guy, a normal kid, until
he was in his 30s probably about32, the first time that we
noticed some symptoms and itjust came out of the blue.
He was starting his own company.
(02:47):
I was helping him with that.
We were, you know, applying forbusiness licenses and insurance
and he was, you know, just undera lot of pressure from
everything that he was goingthrough because he was
supporting his wife and herthree children our three
daughters from a prior marriageand his two sons and, you know,
on a very limited income and noincome at all for a little while
there, while he was startinghis business.
(03:08):
So he was just extremelystressed and I don't know if
that's what triggered his firstpsychotic episode or exactly
what it was, but all of a suddenhe started talking about people
were following him or thatsomebody put a tracking device
on his truck, that there wassomebody recording things in his
attic you know it's all relatedto his starting his new
business that there were peopleafter him who were trying to
sabotage him, and it wasn'treasonable.
(03:30):
And we kept trying to talk tohim about getting help.
And you know, at that point intime we didn't know.
We didn't know he had a mentalillness.
We thought maybe he had a braintumor or that there was
something physical going on thatwas causing his delusions and
we were just desperately tryingto get him to agree to go to the
doctor.
But he was so busy doingeverything and it was just like,
within probably two and a halfto three months of us first kind
(03:52):
of like saying, well, thisisn't right, something's going
on that he got caught up in thecriminal justice system for the
first time.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
When that happened, was it something that was minor.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Well, no, he had been acting very strangely and
things had been getting tense athome.
He was raising five kids, youknow, ages two to, I guess, 15
at that time, and he just wasnot acting normally.
And his 15-year-old was reallyalarmed and DCF was notified
that there were things going onin the home that maybe shouldn't
be.
There were arguments and justyou know, weird stuff going on.
(04:25):
Dcf got involved and decided toinvestigate, and we're glad
that they did.
We thought that was appropriateand we were hoping that we
would be able to get some helpfrom them for him at that time.
So we were kind of like, yeah,let's get these people involved
so they can help us figure thisout.
But of course it didn't turnout that way.
They removed the kids from thehome while they were
investigating and placed themwith us, which then tied us up
(04:48):
with all kinds of court hearings.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Now did you have all five kids.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
We had all five.
Yes, we took all five of themand so we had court hearings and
all kinds of stuff that werejust kind of overwhelming us at
that time and diverting us, sothat we really couldn't be as
effective as maybe as we'd hopedto be with in helping him.
So it was just a crazy time andone of the things that they
ordered was for him not to cometo our house.
He or his wife were notsupposed to be here because they
(05:15):
were still investigating and wewere told, if he came to our
house, that we needed to tellthem to leave.
Well, one night they showed upat our house and it was for a
good reason.
He came to tell me that he'dgotten a job and he was so
excited about it and he walkedin the door and I could tell he
was a little off because he waslike almost manically happy.
Of course he met me, it's justhe was coming to the door and
(05:36):
I'm like, no, you need to leave,you can't be here.
Because I was so terrified thatDCF, if they found out that
he'd been in our house, even fora short time, that they would
take the kids and place them infoster care.
So I was just going to bereally rigid with their rules,
and if they said he wasn'tsupposed to be there, I was
going to adhere to that.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
What happened next?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
And then my husband walked in and he saw me, you
know, sort of not really arguingwith Tristan but being real
forceful with him you know thatyou've got to leave and then he
kind of misread the situationand, anyway, things kind of blew
up and it became a problem.
Tristan's just kind of you know, everybody was overreacting to
everything at the moment.
So they did kind of get into it, which was unusual because they
(06:15):
had a good relationship, theywere really close and you know,
tristan just was not acting likehe would normally act and I
ended up calling the police.
The police came and really whatwe wanted them to do that night
was just tell him to leave,make sure that he understood
that the DCF rules were justlike a no trespassing order or
something.
I mean it was a rule that hehad to follow.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Sure, that's understandable.
So what happened from there?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Two officers arrived at first.
They separated Tristan, tookhim outside One officer was
talking to him, one was talkingto us took him outside.
One officer was talking to him,one was talking to us.
Everything seemed really calm.
The officer in fact outsidepopped his head in and said
everything's cool, we're youknow, we're just talking out
here.
Tristan was calm and you know wecontinued to talk to the
officer telling him, you knowthe things that had been going
on, that we had observed that wethought that there's something
(06:58):
going on in his head.
He was delusional, he wasparanoid.
You know that we were reallytrying to get him some help, but
what we need them to do todayis just to tell him to leave.
And then some other patrol carspulled up and within like
minutes he was on the groundgetting tased and I didn't see
what happened out there.
I still don't know to this dayexactly what happened to
initiate that and the policereports it mentions that they
(07:20):
tripped over some landscapingand they landed on the ground
and I just think that Tristan inthat moment, with his mind not
working right the way it was atthe time, that he just fought
back.
You know.
I mean he was literally layingon a bed of rocks stones in our
garden we had landscapes Stoneswere there getting ground into
stones, with a police officer onhis back yelling at him to give
(07:43):
him his hand, and Tristansaying I'm not resisting, I'm
not resisting.
I did step out at one point intime when they were tasing him
repeatedly, and I stepped outand I said please stop tasing my
son.
And I was told to get backinside and I heard the officer
yelling at him you know, give meyour arm, give me your arm.
And I looked at him and I saidhe can't, it's pinned under his
body.
You're on top of him.
He can't give you his arm.
(08:03):
And I was so upset I was toldby the officer you need to go
inside or you're going to bearrested too.
I went inside because I didn'treally have a choice.
I had five kids that I'm nowresponsible for and it was like
it was a horrible situation.
So that was Tristan's firstencounter.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
So ultimately did things get worked out.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Oh no, he was no.
No, this was just the start ofthe crazy journey, because he
was arrested that night.
He was taken to a hospital onthe way to jail because he had
cuts and bruises and wasbleeding.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So did anything get better once he was at the
hospital.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
They took him to the hospital.
Apparently, at the hospital, hemade the statement that he
didn't remember what happenedand apologized, but they took
him to jail and, yeah, thatstarted his first journey.
He was in jail for like eightmonths before they determined
that he was incompetent to standtrial.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
It took another several months before they sent
him to down here in Florida.
They have forensic hospitalsthat are solely for the purposes
of restoring people'scompetency.
They sent him there, you know,and then back.
You know there's more to allthat, I guess, as far as what
happened there and how he wastreated while he was in jail and
stuff.
But you know he ended upbasically coming back on
medication, which was good.
That really helped him becauseon the medication he was fine
(09:15):
after that.
But when he came back he wasdesperate to get out of jail.
He was not going to plead nocontest because he was told by
his defense attorney that if hedid, he'd have to stay in jail
for as long as they wanted tokeep him.
It wouldn't be up to him andthat it could rest on any time
they wanted to, for the rest ofhis life.
Anytime he started acting, youknow, weird and he was desperate
(09:36):
to get out of jail because hewas losing his children.
He hadn't done the things thatthe Department of Children and
Family Services required him todo while he was in jail as far
as taking parenting classes andstuff like that, because he was
incompetent, he was not mentallywell and didn't have access.
He was during that time kept inan isolation cell on the
medical unit of the jail, so hedidn't have a tablet, he didn't
(09:57):
have communications with DCF orhis attorney, you know.
Just nothing was effectivelydone to help him keep custody of
his kids and he knew he wasabout to lose and they were
about to take them away from himand remove his parental rights
and his house was going intoforeclosure.
I mean, when something happenslike this and somebody is
removed from the community, Imean their whole life blows up.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, that's unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
And he just felt desperate to get out.
So he ended up pleading nocontest to five felony charges.
Wow For resisting arrest for afive minute period of time.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, that's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
You know it was nuts.
It was insane.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yes, it certainly sounds it.
So how is your health doingalong, of course, with your
husband?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Well, you know, we were just desperate at that time
.
I mean, the most frustratingpart was not knowing what was
going on and not having accessto him.
We did try to communicate withhim when he was in jail
initially, you know, doing videochats that's allowed at our
county jail and we tried to setthose up and we couldn't
communicate with him.
The last time I communicatedwith him, prior to him being
(11:00):
held for months and sent awayfor restoration and all that
stuff, he was pacing in front ofme on the video screen and
would not sit down.
I could only see him, you know,from the chest down and he was
agitated and he told me and thathad to have emergency surgery
because he had to take out hisgallbladder.
And I mean just told me thislike really fanciful tale, not
(11:20):
fanciful in a good way, but thisreally awful tale about what
was going on with him.
And of course none of it wasreal, that was just all part of
his psychosis.
So we couldn't effectivelycommunicate with him.
He did not get goodrepresentation at the time.
Never, never, through the wholelegal processes that he went
through, never did he getadequate legal representation.
(11:40):
Everybody just kept kind ofswaddling through the system.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
So between the time that he was arrested, went to
jail because he was in front ofyour house, from that point, did
he ever get out and did thingsget kind of back to well, I'm
not going to say normal, becauseit never does get normal, but
did he ever get back to a betterplace?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yes he did.
When he was released afterpleading no contest, well, what
they sentenced him that day isjust credit for time served and
put him on probation for, Ithink, four years.
He had just told him good luck,stay on your medication.
Send him on his way.
To his credit, he really wantedto stay on his medication.
When I picked him up from thejail, the first thing he wanted
(12:21):
to do was go get a three-dayprescription that they had gave
him for his medication to getthat filled.
So I took him to the localpharmacy and you know he gave a
prescription for three daysworth of pills and it was going
to be over $300.
And fortunately the pharmacistsaid hey, do you have GoodRx or
whatever?
And she helped us find apharmacy where we could get it
at cheaper.
And then Monday rolled aroundand you know the first place he
(12:44):
went was to the local behavioralhealth center to get an
appointment so that he could geta regular prescription.
And you know he did really goodwhen he first got out.
Within a few days he got a joband he managed to get his
mortgage paid up and, you know,was really working through.
You know getting things caughtup when you've been gone for,
you know, almost a year of yourlife.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Wow, he was gone for almost a year.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Yeah yeah, it took about a year because it took so
many months.
It was like eight months beforethey even decided he had a
problem and was incompetent tostand trial.
And then, of course, there wasthe several months of the
restoration facility and beingbrought back and being brought
back before the court.
I don't remember exactly howlong it was, but it was a long
time.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
So when he got out the first time, got back to a
better place, how was his family?
Was it still intact?
What happened on his personallife there?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Oh well, by then the process had gone on so long
through DCF, and DCF here inFlorida really tries to resolve
their cases within a year.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
So they were pushing for resolution and they ended up
taking away his wife's rights.
But prior to that, tristantalked to them and voluntarily
relinquished his rights, withthe understanding that they
would allow us to adopt his sons, because he wanted to make sure
, no matter what, that they wereplaced with foster care, that
they could live, they could beplaced with us, and he knew that
(14:04):
he would be able to havecontact with them, because we
told him you know, as long asyou stand your medication and
you're stable and you're notacting goofy, you know we want
you to be part of their lives.
We want you to be part of theirlives.
We want you to be their dad.
We're still their grandparents.
We want to be theirgrandparents, but legally we'll
be the ones with custody, andyou know we all felt like that
was the best solution forgetting the Department of
Children's Family Services outof our lives and keeping the
(14:26):
kids in a stable situation.
So that summer, though, when hegot out, he was doing really
good.
He came to all of Cody'sbaseball games.
They were in frequentcommunication with each other.
You know we'd go over and spendtime at his house, especially
with Colton the younger one.
Yeah, I mean he was getting tobe dad and he was a good dad for
most of that time and then Idon't know, I don't know.
(14:48):
I mean it's, I guess, prettytypical for people to stop
taking their medication and Ithink that's what happened with
him, because it was aboutOctober.
He got out and like in Marchand was fine through the whole
summer and then in March we kindof started seeing the same
symptoms again.
It was like, yeah, there's thatthing in my attic I need to go
take out of my attic becausethey're recording me.
(15:08):
And it was like no, no, here wego again.
And people who haveschizophrenia they tend to not
acknowledge that they havemental illness.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
There's yeah, there's a word for that.
I'm not sure if I pronounced itright.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yes, I believe you're talking about anosognosia.
Yes, it's hard to pronounce,it's hard to remember, but it's
very typical, very, very commonwith people with schizophrenia
to feel like, convincethemselves they're not ill.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
What was going through your mind at the time.
You saw what was going on atfirst, and things were getting
better.
Now you're seeing a relapse, sohow did you handle that?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Well, we were trying to get help again.
You know, of course I had notstopped getting, trying to get
help or trying to educate myself.
You know, as soon as we hadthat diagnosis that he had
schizophrenia, of course Istarted going online and trying
to learn everything that I couldabout the illness and how to
help him and how to talk to himand all that kind of stuff.
I even went to the behavioralcenter we only have really one
(16:03):
here in town, someone that hadgiven him his medication just to
see if my husband and I couldmeet with somebody there who
could explain to us, you know,how we could help him, what we
could do to get keep him onmedication, and they just
wouldn't talk to us.
The HIPAA rules, it was a bigwall, I mean, they just would
not talk to us because he wastheir patient and he would have
(16:24):
to be the one who came in and ofcourse he was working and he
just didn't think that he had anillness by that point and we
were all blowing everything outof proportion.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Meanwhile, do you still have the five children?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Well, we did at that time.
Yes, well, one of them had goneto live with another family, a
family friend but we had theyounger four.
Yeah, we ended up raising histwo stepdaughters and we still
have two at home.
Once we were able to, weadopted Cody and Colton, so
they've been ours.
I'm a grand mom now.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
What are their ages?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Oh, Cody's 17.
He's a junior and Colton isnine.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And how are they doing?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
They're doing good, they really are.
Cody's fully aware of whathappened to his dad.
He knows how his life ended andall the details and in fact he
you know we'll talk about this,I'm sure but you know he's went
to Tallahassee with me to lobbyfor changes in the mental health
and criminal justice rules.
So he's like you know, he has apretty good handle on it and he
seems to be okay.
I think that there's sort of alot under the surface, that's.
(17:25):
You know that he still has todeal with a lot of thoughts and
but Colton's the one he's doinggreat.
Colton was only two when thisstarted and so he doesn't really
have a lot of memories with hisdad.
He loved his dad but he doesn'thave a lot of memories.
So we've been his mom, you know, and dad and we are in his mind
.
But the hard part with him isthat he does not know yet.
(17:47):
He knows his dad died but heonly knows that he died because
he was mentally ill, that he hada sickness in his head.
He doesn't know how he died andI'm going to have to tell him
that his dad died because hecommitted suicide with a
chainsaw.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah, that's going to be tough.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
And how do you tell that?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I really don't know, but it sure is going to be tough
.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
So, yeah, I'm not looking forward to having that
conversation with Colton.
I've thought about it so manytimes that I don't know how I'll
even find the words.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, I can understand that, but I do know
that somehow you'll find a way.
It'll present itself and, ofcourse, the older he becomes not
going to be easier, but easierto understand for him.
Right, it's a tough situationand a very tough subject to
cover.
When all this started happeningagain, what was the next step?
(18:37):
He was having these delusionsagain.
So how did you go about tryingto handle this delicate
situation?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Well he was.
We were trying again toconvince him to get help again
and he was like in denial.
I'm not, I don't have a mentalillness.
You guys are just blowingthings out of proportion.
I'm fine, you know.
We just couldn't get hiscooperation.
It was like by December then, Iguess, where we were still
really concerned, trying tostick close to him and be nosy
(19:05):
and, you know, kind of keep ahandle on it, I guess, just to
see if he'd work it out.
I mean, people sometimes havepsychotic episodes and then they
come through it, right, youknow, I went and got his
medication myself from thepharmacy and said here, you know
, and he was like I've alreadygot it, I didn't need that, you
know.
It's like, yeah, I think you do, we're having those kinds of
discussions with him.
And then, and we saw him just acouple of weeks before the last
(19:27):
episode because he'd come toone of Cody's basketball games
and he and he seemed pretty okaythat day.
And it was like a week and ahalf or two weeks later when we
got the phone call that he haddriven his truck into the pond
at the Charlotte County Jailthey have a big pond out front
and been arrested for littering.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, that's what I heard.
It was like a class threefelony for littering.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah, because the truck weighed over 500 pounds.
Right, you know that's usuallypeople that go out, you know
dump loads of trash,construction debris in the woods
or whatever.
But no, they decided to chargehim.
And you know, they knew, theyknew that he had a mental
illness.
They knew, you know, he'd beenthere.
They knew that he was mentallyill.
I immediately wrote letters tothe judge.
I wrote a letter to thedistrict attorney's office.
(20:10):
Like within three days they hadcommunication on their desks
from me stating and pleading forthis to be treated as a mental
illness, not as a criminalmatter, and I just didn't get
anywhere with that.
So what was their thinking?
(20:31):
Or did you ever find out?
Why would they pursue this as acriminal act rather than just a
reach out for help?
Interestingly, two days agofinally talked to the head
prosecutor at the districtattorney's office, who I
directed the letter to, and shesaid she never saw the letter,
that she never got it.
I don't know if it was one ofthose situations where I wrote
to her and of course you knowshe's got other people who scan
her mail or whatever and hand itoff to different people.
(20:52):
I don't know what happened tothe letter, but she said that
she didn't get it.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Okay, Just so that we can clarify this for everyone
how long did this take?
What was the timeframe fromwhen this all started before you
actually saw the DA to find out?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Oh, this started well four years ago.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I haven't confronted her until now.
I met her in Tallahasseebecause I was up there for a
hearing and met her for thefirst time.
Did not expect to meet her thatday, frankly, when she walked
up to me and introduced herselfwith another person, there was
another person who introducedhimself and said oh and by the
way, this isn't her name and Ijust it stunned me because I
didn't know what she looked like.
(21:34):
I'd never seen her before, andI just looked at her and I said
I have been so mad at you for solong, which I think just really
caught her off guard.
And so then we had a longdiscussion.
She's somebody that I've beenwanting to talk to because I
have been angry.
The word that I had gotten backat that time was the defense
attorney had talked to the DA'soffice and that they were going
to go for the full three yearsand they didn't want to discuss
(21:56):
his mental health issues andthey were going for the max.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
That's the word I got and she, as I was telling her
this the other day, she's likeshaking her head and she said I
would have talked to you, Iwould have you know if I'd known
.
So I you know.
I really thought at the timeand that's why I've been angry
with her for so long.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Right right.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Because I just I thought that they were just cold
hearted.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I guess my question is was she believable?
Did you believe what she said?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
You know I tend to give people the benefit of the
doubt.
That's sort of my personality,yeah me too.
So I tend to believe her whenshe says that I'm hoping that
that's true.
I'm choosing to.
I guess I don't have to forgiveher because there was nothing
to forgive, but I have chosen tolet go of that Sure.
And by the end of ourconversation it was like well,
how can we work on thislegislation together?
(22:43):
What can we do now to make surethis doesn't happen to anybody
else?
And I expect that in the comingmonths I will be working with
her.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Well, that's a good thing.
As we know, this was a very badsituation and it turned out,
unfortunately, horribly, but ifsome good can come out of this,
the shining light that you'reputting forward is that you're
changing legislation that willhelp others in the future.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Right.
Well, you know the rest ofTristan's story there.
I don't want to skip over that.
But he went through the wholeprocess again like he had the
first time, being determinedthat he was incompetent to stand
trial.
This time he was literally insolitary although they don't
like for me to call it solitaryconfinement, but he was in rural
.
What did they call it?
He was in the infirmary, lockedin a cell for his protection
(23:30):
and everybody's protectionbecause of his mental health
issues, without a tablet,without a phone, without
newspapers or TV or anything butthe voices in his head, for
hundreds of days.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Before they determined that he was again
incompetent to stand trial andsent to the forensic facility.
After he was adjudicatedincompetent to stand trial, it
took another 117 days beforethey sent him for restoration,
and which is just crazy becausein Florida it's supposed to
happen within three days.
But anyway, at the end of thatwhole process he came back and
pled no contest and wassentenced to three years in
prison and he was transferredfrom the county jail to a prison
(24:08):
here in Florida and he livedonly 63 days.
The 63rd day he was sent out ona work detail and handed a
chainsaw and used the chainsawto take his own life.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Okay, I guess the big question, at least the one that
resonates with me, is why wouldthey give someone a chainsaw?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
That's the question that everybody asks.
You know it didn't make senseto me.
You know we know some of thedetails.
I can't really talk about someparts of this because we did end
up suing the Department ofCorrections here in Florida and
settled the case.
But you know, I think it camedown in part to miscommunication
within the facility because theperson who handed him the
chainsaw didn't know that he wasmentally ill.
(24:53):
He had just met Tristan andTristan had been put on the work
detail.
Um, that day he was put in afacility where it's like the end
of your sentence, like we'regonna now make sure you've got
some skills to go out in thecommunity and work when you get
home.
This is like the winding downpart of it, because they only
had 15 months left to serve atthat time and so you they have
(25:14):
those inmates do things like youknow, do a landscaping detail
so they can learn some skills.
So that day the guard asked forvolunteers.
They use all kinds of powertools.
You know lots of dangeroustools, but by that time they're
supposed to be okay to handle it.
So the guard asked he needed tovolunteer to handle the
(25:35):
chainsaw.
That day Tristan another guy youknow said yeah, we have
experience.
Tristan was the first one thatyou know.
He had a chainsaw and said canyou start this?
And yeah, he did.
He knew how to use a chainsaw,so, yeah, so that's one of the
problems being dealt with.
This litigation is that there'smore communication so that it
has to be documented If somebodyhas a mental illness and
(25:56):
they're classified as beingmentally ill, that their work
assignments have to be takeninto consideration and
documented if there's anyrestrictions or whatever.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
So when this all happened, reactions are going to
be horrible and it's going tobe hard to understand.
How did the prison handle this?
What was their tone, theirattitude in it?
How did it all come across whenyou found out?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Well, we got a phone call.
I was sitting at my deskworking that morning and I saw
Miami flash up on my phone andit didn't even occur to me.
I just didn't even think aboutTristan.
I thought it was anotherbusiness call.
When I answered the phone.
It was the chaplain and we hadabout a three-minute phone call
with him.
He just called to tell me thatTristan had been found dead that
(26:44):
morning and he couldn't tell meany of the details.
Gave me a phone number so thatI could call back to get more
details and, you know, refer usto the morgue.
Then I could contact them aswell.
You know, I really didn't talkto them very long.
Once he told me that Tristanhad been found dead, I was like
I hit the ground on.
I just was like devastated.
I handed the phone to my husbandso he handled that part of the
(27:05):
conversation, but it was soshort, so perfunctory, and you
know we did.
As soon as we got off the phonewe started calling back.
You know what happened?
We wanted to know, we wanted toknow details.
We wanted to know did he die ofnatural causes?
Had he been beaten up?
Had he been murdered?
You know we just didn't haveany answers at that point in
time and honestly, god, we couldnot get ahold of a single
(27:25):
person at the jail.
You know our phone calls keptgoing to those robocalls dial
push one for whatever, four forwhatever.
We tried every single button wecould push.
We even called the, pushed thebutton for the laundry to try to
get a message through.
You know, I did actually, Ithink, get a hold of a live
person there and said you know,my son was found dead there
(27:45):
today.
Nobody, I can't reach anybody.
Please get a message tosomebody and have somebody call
me back.
Well, we never heard.
I never to this day have talkedto anybody in the Department of
Corrections except for therecords department, when we
finally started trying to getrecords and, like my husband
said, they just circled theirwagons.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Really well, Did you get anything from them
eventually?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I mean it took like over a year for me to get his
records released.
We did get a hold of the morgueand found out that he had
committed suicide with achainsaw that day and we learned
that from them Fighting forrecords after that with the
Florida Department of LawEnforcement that were
investigating.
Yet they were the other agencybrought in to investigate it.
You know we just couldn't getany answers.
(28:26):
It was still underinvestigation.
We can't talk to you about this.
It was just insane.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
So did you ever get any calls from them that gave
you any comfort, or did theyever show any kind of empathy at
all?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
no, not any kind of empathy, definitely not.
We finally found out that theyhad ruled that there was no
wrongdo, no legal wrongdoing.
You know, nobody had harmed him, nobody had participated in it,
nobody had committed a crimeper se.
So but that wasn't.
It didn't answer questions.
No, so we, you know, we, webrought a lawsuit.
(29:04):
I finally was fortunate.
I had contacted lots ofdifferent attorneys who just
weren't interested in handlingthe case because I didn't have
answers for them.
I couldn't give them details.
Nobody wanted to take the case.
They were like you get thedetails first and we'll look
over the records and we'lldetermine if there's a case.
So we couldn't get anywhere.
But the Florida JusticeInstitute it's a law firm in
Miami, a nonprofit law firm thatreally advocates for criminal
(29:28):
justice issues request on theirwebsite they get hundreds of
them every month forrepresentation and telling
Tristan's story and about.
It was about three months afterI did that that I got a phone
call saying hey, we read whatyou wrote about your son.
We'd like to come over and talkto you about it and see if
there's a you know cause ofaction there that we can help
you with.
So what?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
happened, moving forward from that.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
So we did end up suing and you know, going
through that whole legal processthat you go through with a
wrongful death and through thediscovery.
There were lots of things thatwe learned that I can't talk
about now, but we did get someanswers.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Did you find any?
I'm trying to find the rightword comfort, isn't it?
But did you find, any case,anything where you could take?
And, after it was all said anddone, you heard all the
testimony.
You've heard everything whereyou could take a deep breath and
at least move forward in abetter way.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Well, you know, it helps to at least understand
what happened.
Sure, that helped us make somesense of it, because it was
senseless.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
But it didn't start to make sense to understanding.
You know that.
Exactly what happened duringthat time period?
There's so many answers we'llnever have, though.
I mean we don't know what wason Tristan's mind, and that's
probably one of the mostheartbreaking things you know.
I've said this many times if hehad been a college student off
to college who committed suicide, I would have wanted to talk to
his roommates and hisprofessors and try to figure out
(30:52):
what his mental state was andwhat was on his mind.
But when you're dealing withsomebody who was locked away at
prison, you can't talk toanybody.
Nobody will talk to me from theDepartment of Corrections about
what happened because ofliability and being concerned
that they're going to get introuble if they do.
And I can't talk to hisroommates because they're
inmates.
They're locked up and I mean Iwould love.
I think I would love.
(31:13):
I don't know.
I have mixed feelings aboutthis, because at first I felt
like I really wanted to talk tosomebody who was with him there
that day, who had observed him,who knew what he was like that
morning or the days before thathappened.
And now I'm not so sure.
I'm not so sure.
I want to know.
You know, it's just like itcould be.
It could make it easier, itcould make it harder.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I don't know so, but it is frustrating.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
So now you're doing a lot of advocacy work, is that
correct?
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I am.
There was one of the thingsthat happened shortly after
Tristan died and we got thatphone call.
Like within three or four daysof that, I got a phone call from
a journalist from CBS Miami.
His name's Jim DeFede, andsomeone had contacted him from
the prison and said, hey, thisis not getting any coverage,
(32:02):
this is not getting anyattention, it's not been
reported on.
This is a big deal and you needto know about it.
And he's an investigativejournalist that does like really
long pieces and stuff.
So he contacted me and he saidyou know I hate to be this way
he said that this story is goingto be told, whether you
participated in it or not,because I'm going to dig, I'm
going to find the details andI'm going to have, I want to
(32:23):
report, I want people to knowwhat happened to your son, but
it might be better for you to.
You know, help me with this sothat we can tell Tristan's story
.
Way, and you know I mean thatjust took my breath away.
I just at that point I wasfeeling shell-shocked because I
just found out that he died andI was like, well, do I want this
?
Do I want other people to knowabout this Do I?
How do I handle this with hissons?
(32:44):
How do I protect them?
Because at that point in timewe didn't know.
We didn't know all the details.
So that was a tough decision,but but I did decide.
I mean, we talked about it andwe decided, yeah, we'll start
talking to him and we'll seewhere it goes.
And right away Jim decided thisis not just a little story,
this is not going to need, thisdoesn't need to be addressed by
a five minute blurb on, you know, monday night TV.
(33:05):
This is something that has tobe investigated.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
How did it go moving forward with that?
Speaker 2 (33:17):
With his help and you know, between the two of us we
were able to really dig forrecords and get access to things
that you know most journalistsdon't get access to.
We gave him full access to allthe records that we got and he
ended up developing a wholedocumentary titled the Warehouse
the Life and Death of TristanMurphy.
You can find it on YouTube.
He's done a lot of follow-upinterviews, like he interviewed
the judge who had sentencedTristan and you know other
people who were involved in thecriminal justice system.
(33:39):
And out of that grew aninvitation last year to speak at
a hearing in Tallahassee beforethe criminal justice committee
where they brought in thedepartment of children and
family services and the DOC.
And I got to speak at thathearing explaining what happened
to Tristan and and SenatorBradley was the head of the
Criminal Justice Committee andshe really sunk her teeth into
(33:59):
this issue.
I also had the opportunity tomeet with Senator Albritton, who
is the current and was at thattime the incoming president of
the Senate and a one-on-one withhim, and you know he just took
the reins with this.
He's like this needs to be amajor part of my platform.
You know, when somebody comesinto office like that and it's
their two-year term to be Senatepresident.
(34:21):
They kind of get to pick someobjectives, some reforms that
they want to make a priority,and this is one that he chose to
do that with.
So right now, yes, through thelegislature.
We have the Tristan Murphy Actpassing through legislature
right now.
I was just there for a hearingon Wednesday before the Criminal
Justice Committee of the Houseof Representatives.
It's already passed theCriminal Justice Committee in
(34:43):
the Senate, several morecommittees to go before it lands
on the House floor and theSenate floor for full votes,
final votes.
But it's been well received andwhat this legislation does is it
really focuses on the front endof someone's involvement with
the criminal justice system,with there being an effort to
really identify right from theget-go, like within the first 24
(35:05):
hours, whether the individualhas mental health issues,
whether the actions that theyhad been arrested for could be
related to their mental healthand to have them evaluated on an
emergency basis and if there'ssome funding and some model
programs for how that might bestructured in the county jail,
with the hope that throughoutall of Florida counties will
(35:27):
start developing these programsso that people can get diverted
right out, right at thebeginning.
Get the mental health that theyneed, get the services they
need and become a productivemember of the community rather
than rotting in jail.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah, anything that can be diverted helps a lot.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Because once you get in the criminal justice system
and that was our experience withTristan we just we had to wait.
We had to wait for theirprocesses, we had to wait for
them to determine who'sincompetent to stand trial and
meanwhile, during that time, hebecame more and more mentally
ill.
So we're hoping that thispasses.
There's several other things inthe legislation that you know
would have helped in Tristan'scase.
Everybody now involved inlooking back on it you know
(36:06):
hindsight's- you know, whatever,yeah 2020.
Yeah, but everybody understandsand realizes this should have
really been handled sodifferently and he'd still be
with us if it had, if some ofthe legislation were in place.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
At least if something good comes out of something bad
, right, at least a step in theright direction of where it
needs to go.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, I don't want this tohappen to anybody, and that's
what I've been fighting for, youknow, this whole time is.
This has got to change.
This is, it's so broken.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Florida's maybe no different than any other state,
but here in Florida, you know,we have the highest number of
people in need of mental healthservices.
We're number one in need andwe're 49th in provision of
services, and 30% or so ofpeople in our prisons have
mental health issues.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Unfortunately, what you said is very prevalent all
across this country.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
I know it is.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Yeah, I talked with so many people across this
country.
I just spoke with a judge inNevada.
We had a very similardiscussion in the fact that
there's problems all across thiscountry.
We need to focus on legislationthat can be national rather
than just county by county.
But until we get that, we haveto do exactly what you're doing,
and that's fight on a locallevel.
(37:21):
By doing that, hopefully, wecan get enough people together
and we can change it on anational level.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Right.
Well, I feel like this is areal shift for Florida and I'm
really happy about that, becauseFlorida's been a really
hard-on-crime state.
And I mean our system here, ourprisons, are failing and
they're not working.
Financially they're not working.
There's no rehabilitation.
I mean, everybody's reallystarting to realize this isn't a
can that they can keep kickingdown the road, and they need to
(37:50):
address it.
And I think this is a greatfirst step to really think about
those who are especiallyvulnerable and try to shift them
towards treatment instead ofhandcuffs.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, Now, is there anything that I haven't touched
upon that you think is importantfor people to hear?
Speaker 2 (38:09):
You know I will say that there's one part of this
legislation that doesn't dealwith one of the problems,
legislation that doesn't dealwith one of the problems and I
think that that is.
You know, it's difficult totreat somebody with a mental
illness, particularly a mentalillness like schizophrenia.
But I think that sometimesthere's not an understanding.
I mean, I understand thatbecause we didn't even
understand how to deal with this.
(38:29):
But you know there'smedications and there's
treatments and there's newtreatments that can be really
effective in treatingschizophrenia in particular.
There's now injectables thatcan last a long time 30 days or
two months or whatever.
That helps people withschizophrenia not fall off the
medicine wagon.
You know there needs to befunding on the national level
(38:50):
there.
I have real concerns, I guess,about Medicaid and try not to
get political here, but you knowall the talk in Washington
about cutting the Medicaidprogram.
People don't understand thatmost of these people with mental
illnesses, or a lot of them,who are in need of these
services, I mean they get itfrom Medicaid and when we cut
Medicaid I mean there's justgoing to be a tsunami of people
(39:10):
flooding into the criminaljustice system if Medicaid
funding is cut and there justneeds to be really an emphasis
on the mental health provisions,the provisions of mental health
care.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I appreciate you takingthe time to come on my show.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
You're welcome.
Happy to be part of it.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah, it was a pleasure to have you.
Thanks again, again Thanks fortaking the time out of your busy
schedule to listen to our showtoday.
We hope that you enjoyed it asmuch as we enjoyed bringing it
(39:51):
to you.
If you know anyone that wouldlike to tell us their story,
send them to tonymantorcomContact then they can give us
their information so one daythey may be a guest on our show.
One more thing we ask telleveryone everywhere about why
Not Me, the World, theconversations we're having and
(40:13):
the inspiration our guests giveto everyone everywhere that you
are not alone in this world.
Welcome to why Not Me ?
The World Podcast, hosted byTony Mantor, broadcasting from
Music City, usa, nashville,tennessee.
Join us as our guests tell ustheir stories.
Some will make you laugh, somewill make you cry.
Their stories Some will makeyou laugh, some will make you
(00:30):
cry.
Real life people who willinspire and show that you are
not alone in this world.
Hopefully, you gain moreawareness, acceptance and a
better understanding for autismaround the world.
Hi, I'm Tony Mantor.
(00:53):
Welcome to why Not Me?
The World Humanity OverHandcuffs the Silent Crisis
special event.
Joining us today is CindyMurphy.
She's here to share the storyof her son, tristan, who battles
schizophrenia.
Tristan was managing well onmedication for some time, but
his condition worsened Followingan incident where he took a
(01:13):
pickup truck and crashed it intoa pond.
He was arrested and sent toCharlotte County Jail.
He was later convicted,transferred to the Florida
Department of Corrections andassigned to work duty.
Tragically, his story endedwith a loss of his life while in
jail.
This heartbreaking experiencehas inspired her to advocate for
change.
She is now working to supportlegislation in Florida to help
(01:36):
others.
Her story is powerful and we'regrateful to have her here to
share it.
Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, you're welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I understand Tristan developed signs of schizophrenia
later in life which, as we know, is fairly uncommon.
Could you provide somebackground on how this condition
emerged?
Were there any early signs inhis younger years?
And if there was, how did itultimately develop with his life
?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Well, you know Tristan, you know he's unusual
because he did haveschizophrenia, but he didn't
develop it at a young age likemost people do.
Most people start havingsymptoms when they're in their
teens or early 20s.
Looking back at the early partof his life, he did have a
learning disability, but it wasvisual motor integration skills.
He was really really good atschool.
He was always a little bit ofhis own little quirky
(02:25):
personality, I guess.
So, as he was growing up, a lotof times we wondered whether he
had Asperger's because you know, he just had a lot of those
kind of characteristics andstuff.
But otherwise he was just anormal guy, a normal kid, until
he was in his 30s probably about32, the first time that we
noticed some symptoms and itjust came out of the blue.
He was starting his own company.
(02:47):
I was helping him with that.
We were, you know, applying forbusiness licenses and insurance
and he was, you know, just undera lot of pressure from
everything that he was goingthrough because he was
supporting his wife and herthree children our three
daughters from a prior marriageand his two sons and, you know,
on a very limited income and noincome at all for a little while
there, while he was startinghis business.
(03:08):
So he was just extremelystressed and I don't know if
that's what triggered his firstpsychotic episode or exactly
what it was, but all of a suddenhe started talking about people
were following him or thatsomebody put a tracking device
on his truck, that there wassomebody recording things in his
attic you know it's all relatedto his starting his new
business that there were peopleafter him who were trying to
sabotage him, and it wasn'treasonable.
(03:30):
And we kept trying to talk tohim about getting help.
And you know, at that point intime we didn't know.
We didn't know he had a mentalillness.
We thought maybe he had a braintumor or that there was
something physical going on thatwas causing his delusions and
we were just desperately tryingto get him to agree to go to the
doctor.
But he was so busy doingeverything and it was just like,
within probably two and a halfto three months of us first kind
(03:52):
of like saying, well, thisisn't right, something's going
on that he got caught up in thecriminal justice system for the
first time.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
When that happened, was it something that was minor.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Well, no, he had been acting very strangely and
things had been getting tense athome.
He was raising five kids, youknow, ages two to, I guess, 15
at that time, and he just wasnot acting normally.
And his 15-year-old was reallyalarmed and DCF was notified
that there were things going onin the home that maybe shouldn't
be.
There were arguments and justyou know, weird stuff going on.
(04:25):
Dcf got involved and decided toinvestigate, and we're glad
that they did.
We thought that was appropriateand we were hoping that we
would be able to get some helpfrom them for him at that time.
So we were kind of like, yeah,let's get these people involved
so they can help us figure thisout.
But of course it didn't turnout that way.
They removed the kids from thehome while they were
investigating and placed themwith us, which then tied us up
(04:48):
with all kinds of court hearings.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Now did you have all five kids.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
We had all five.
Yes, we took all five of themand so we had court hearings and
all kinds of stuff that werejust kind of overwhelming us at
that time and diverting us, sothat we really couldn't be as
effective as maybe as we'd hopedto be with in helping him.
So it was just a crazy time andone of the things that they
ordered was for him not to cometo our house.
He or his wife were notsupposed to be here because they
(05:15):
were still investigating and wewere told, if he came to our
house, that we needed to tellthem to leave.
Well, one night they showed upat our house and it was for a
good reason.
He came to tell me that he'dgotten a job and he was so
excited about it and he walkedin the door and I could tell he
was a little off because he waslike almost manically happy.
Of course he met me, it's justhe was coming to the door and
(05:36):
I'm like, no, you need to leave,you can't be here.
Because I was so terrified thatDCF, if they found out that
he'd been in our house, even fora short time, that they would
take the kids and place them infoster care.
So I was just going to bereally rigid with their rules,
and if they said he wasn'tsupposed to be there, I was
going to adhere to that.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
What happened next?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
And then my husband walked in and he saw me, you
know, sort of not really arguingwith Tristan but being real
forceful with him you know thatyou've got to leave and then he
kind of misread the situationand, anyway, things kind of blew
up and it became a problem.
Tristan's just kind of you know, everybody was overreacting to
everything at the moment.
So they did kind of get into it, which was unusual because they
(06:15):
had a good relationship, theywere really close and you know,
tristan just was not acting likehe would normally act and I
ended up calling the police.
The police came and really whatwe wanted them to do that night
was just tell him to leave,make sure that he understood
that the DCF rules were justlike a no trespassing order or
something.
I mean it was a rule that hehad to follow.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Sure, that's understandable.
So what happened from there?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Two officers arrived at first.
They separated Tristan, tookhim outside One officer was
talking to him, one was talkingto us took him outside.
One officer was talking to him,one was talking to us.
Everything seemed really calm.
The officer in fact outsidepopped his head in and said
everything's cool, we're youknow, we're just talking out
here.
Tristan was calm and you know wecontinued to talk to the
officer telling him, you knowthe things that had been going
on, that we had observed that wethought that there's something
(06:58):
going on in his head.
He was delusional, he wasparanoid.
You know that we were reallytrying to get him some help, but
what we need them to do todayis just to tell him to leave.
And then some other patrol carspulled up and within like
minutes he was on the groundgetting tased and I didn't see
what happened out there.
I still don't know to this dayexactly what happened to
initiate that and the policereports it mentions that they
(07:20):
tripped over some landscapingand they landed on the ground
and I just think that Tristan inthat moment, with his mind not
working right the way it was atthe time, that he just fought
back.
You know.
I mean he was literally layingon a bed of rocks stones in our
garden we had landscapes Stoneswere there getting ground into
stones, with a police officer onhis back yelling at him to give
(07:43):
him his hand, and Tristansaying I'm not resisting, I'm
not resisting.
I did step out at one point intime when they were tasing him
repeatedly, and I stepped outand I said please stop tasing my
son.
And I was told to get backinside and I heard the officer
yelling at him you know, give meyour arm, give me your arm.
And I looked at him and I saidhe can't, it's pinned under his
body.
You're on top of him.
He can't give you his arm.
(08:03):
And I was so upset I was toldby the officer you need to go
inside or you're going to bearrested too.
I went inside because I didn'treally have a choice.
I had five kids that I'm nowresponsible for and it was like
it was a horrible situation.
So that was Tristan's firstencounter.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
So ultimately did things get worked out.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Oh no, he was no.
No, this was just the start ofthe crazy journey, because he
was arrested that night.
He was taken to a hospital onthe way to jail because he had
cuts and bruises and wasbleeding.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So did anything get better once he was at the
hospital.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
They took him to the hospital.
Apparently, at the hospital, hemade the statement that he
didn't remember what happenedand apologized, but they took
him to jail and, yeah, thatstarted his first journey.
He was in jail for like eightmonths before they determined
that he was incompetent to standtrial.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
It took another several months before they sent
him to down here in Florida.
They have forensic hospitalsthat are solely for the purposes
of restoring people'scompetency.
They sent him there, you know,and then back.
You know there's more to allthat, I guess, as far as what
happened there and how he wastreated while he was in jail and
stuff.
But you know he ended upbasically coming back on
medication, which was good.
That really helped him becauseon the medication he was fine
(09:15):
after that.
But when he came back he wasdesperate to get out of jail.
He was not going to plead nocontest because he was told by
his defense attorney that if hedid, he'd have to stay in jail
for as long as they wanted tokeep him.
It wouldn't be up to him andthat it could rest on any time
they wanted to, for the rest ofhis life.
Anytime he started acting, youknow, weird and he was desperate
(09:36):
to get out of jail because hewas losing his children.
He hadn't done the things thatthe Department of Children and
Family Services required him todo while he was in jail as far
as taking parenting classes andstuff like that, because he was
incompetent, he was not mentallywell and didn't have access.
He was during that time kept inan isolation cell on the
medical unit of the jail, so hedidn't have a tablet, he didn't
(09:57):
have communications with DCF orhis attorney, you know.
Just nothing was effectivelydone to help him keep custody of
his kids and he knew he wasabout to lose and they were
about to take them away from himand remove his parental rights
and his house was going intoforeclosure.
I mean, when something happenslike this and somebody is
removed from the community, Imean their whole life blows up.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, that's unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
And he just felt desperate to get out.
So he ended up pleading nocontest to five felony charges.
Wow For resisting arrest for afive minute period of time.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, that's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
You know it was nuts.
It was insane.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yes, it certainly sounds it.
So how is your health doingalong, of course, with your
husband?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Well, you know, we were just desperate at that time
.
I mean, the most frustratingpart was not knowing what was
going on and not having accessto him.
We did try to communicate withhim when he was in jail
initially, you know, doing videochats that's allowed at our
county jail and we tried to setthose up and we couldn't
communicate with him.
The last time I communicatedwith him, prior to him being
(11:00):
held for months and sent awayfor restoration and all that
stuff, he was pacing in front ofme on the video screen and
would not sit down.
I could only see him, you know,from the chest down and he was
agitated and he told me and thathad to have emergency surgery
because he had to take out hisgallbladder.
And I mean just told me thislike really fanciful tale, not
(11:20):
fanciful in a good way, but thisreally awful tale about what
was going on with him.
And of course none of it wasreal, that was just all part of
his psychosis.
So we couldn't effectivelycommunicate with him.
He did not get goodrepresentation at the time.
Never, never, through the wholelegal processes that he went
through, never did he getadequate legal representation.
(11:40):
Everybody just kept kind ofswaddling through the system.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
So between the time that he was arrested, went to
jail because he was in front ofyour house, from that point, did
he ever get out and did thingsget kind of back to well, I'm
not going to say normal, becauseit never does get normal, but
did he ever get back to a betterplace?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yes he did.
When he was released afterpleading no contest, well, what
they sentenced him that day isjust credit for time served and
put him on probation for, Ithink, four years.
He had just told him good luck,stay on your medication.
Send him on his way.
To his credit, he really wantedto stay on his medication.
When I picked him up from thejail, the first thing he wanted
(12:21):
to do was go get a three-dayprescription that they had gave
him for his medication to getthat filled.
So I took him to the localpharmacy and you know he gave a
prescription for three daysworth of pills and it was going
to be over $300.
And fortunately the pharmacistsaid hey, do you have GoodRx or
whatever?
And she helped us find apharmacy where we could get it
at cheaper.
And then Monday rolled aroundand you know the first place he
(12:44):
went was to the local behavioralhealth center to get an
appointment so that he could geta regular prescription.
And you know he did really goodwhen he first got out.
Within a few days he got a joband he managed to get his
mortgage paid up and, you know,was really working through.
You know getting things caughtup when you've been gone for,
you know, almost a year of yourlife.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Wow, he was gone for almost a year.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Yeah yeah, it took about a year because it took so
many months.
It was like eight months beforethey even decided he had a
problem and was incompetent tostand trial.
And then, of course, there wasthe several months of the
restoration facility and beingbrought back and being brought
back before the court.
I don't remember exactly howlong it was, but it was a long
time.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
So when he got out the first time, got back to a
better place, how was his family?
Was it still intact?
What happened on his personallife there?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Oh well, by then the process had gone on so long
through DCF, and DCF here inFlorida really tries to resolve
their cases within a year.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
So they were pushing for resolution and they ended up
taking away his wife's rights.
But prior to that, tristantalked to them and voluntarily
relinquished his rights, withthe understanding that they
would allow us to adopt his sons, because he wanted to make sure
, no matter what, that they wereplaced with foster care, that
they could live, they could beplaced with us, and he knew that
(14:04):
he would be able to havecontact with them, because we
told him you know, as long asyou stand your medication and
you're stable and you're notacting goofy, you know we want
you to be part of their lives.
We want you to be part of theirlives.
We want you to be their dad.
We're still their grandparents.
We want to be theirgrandparents, but legally we'll
be the ones with custody, andyou know we all felt like that
was the best solution forgetting the Department of
Children's Family Services outof our lives and keeping the
(14:26):
kids in a stable situation.
So that summer, though, when hegot out, he was doing really
good.
He came to all of Cody'sbaseball games.
They were in frequentcommunication with each other.
You know we'd go over and spendtime at his house, especially
with Colton the younger one.
Yeah, I mean he was getting tobe dad and he was a good dad for
most of that time and then Idon't know, I don't know.
(14:48):
I mean it's, I guess, prettytypical for people to stop
taking their medication and Ithink that's what happened with
him, because it was aboutOctober.
He got out and like in Marchand was fine through the whole
summer and then in March we kindof started seeing the same
symptoms again.
It was like, yeah, there's thatthing in my attic I need to go
take out of my attic becausethey're recording me.
(15:08):
And it was like no, no, here wego again.
And people who haveschizophrenia they tend to not
acknowledge that they havemental illness.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
There's yeah, there's a word for that.
I'm not sure if I pronounced itright.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yes, I believe you're talking about anosognosia.
Yes, it's hard to pronounce,it's hard to remember, but it's
very typical, very, very commonwith people with schizophrenia
to feel like, convincethemselves they're not ill.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
What was going through your mind at the time.
You saw what was going on atfirst, and things were getting
better.
Now you're seeing a relapse, sohow did you handle that?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Well, we were trying to get help again.
You know, of course I had notstopped getting, trying to get
help or trying to educate myself.
You know, as soon as we hadthat diagnosis that he had
schizophrenia, of course Istarted going online and trying
to learn everything that I couldabout the illness and how to
help him and how to talk to himand all that kind of stuff.
I even went to the behavioralcenter we only have really one
(16:03):
here in town, someone that hadgiven him his medication just to
see if my husband and I couldmeet with somebody there who
could explain to us, you know,how we could help him, what we
could do to get keep him onmedication, and they just
wouldn't talk to us.
The HIPAA rules, it was a bigwall, I mean, they just would
not talk to us because he wastheir patient and he would have
(16:24):
to be the one who came in and ofcourse he was working and he
just didn't think that he had anillness by that point and we
were all blowing everything outof proportion.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Meanwhile, do you still have the five children?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Well, we did at that time.
Yes, well, one of them had goneto live with another family, a
family friend but we had theyounger four.
Yeah, we ended up raising histwo stepdaughters and we still
have two at home.
Once we were able to, weadopted Cody and Colton, so
they've been ours.
I'm a grand mom now.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
What are their ages?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Oh, Cody's 17.
He's a junior and Colton isnine.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And how are they doing?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
They're doing good, they really are.
Cody's fully aware of whathappened to his dad.
He knows how his life ended andall the details and in fact he
you know we'll talk about this,I'm sure but you know he's went
to Tallahassee with me to lobbyfor changes in the mental health
and criminal justice rules.
So he's like you know, he has apretty good handle on it and he
seems to be okay.
I think that there's sort of alot under the surface, that's.
(17:25):
You know that he still has todeal with a lot of thoughts and
but Colton's the one he's doinggreat.
Colton was only two when thisstarted and so he doesn't really
have a lot of memories with hisdad.
He loved his dad but he doesn'thave a lot of memories.
So we've been his mom, you know, and dad and we are in his mind
.
But the hard part with him isthat he does not know yet.
(17:47):
He knows his dad died but heonly knows that he died because
he was mentally ill, that he hada sickness in his head.
He doesn't know how he died andI'm going to have to tell him
that his dad died because hecommitted suicide with a
chainsaw.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah, that's going to be tough.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
And how do you tell that?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I really don't know, but it sure is going to be tough
.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
So, yeah, I'm not looking forward to having that
conversation with Colton.
I've thought about it so manytimes that I don't know how I'll
even find the words.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, I can understand that, but I do know
that somehow you'll find a way.
It'll present itself and, ofcourse, the older he becomes not
going to be easier, but easierto understand for him.
Right, it's a tough situationand a very tough subject to
cover.
When all this started happeningagain, what was the next step?
(18:37):
He was having these delusionsagain.
So how did you go about tryingto handle this delicate
situation?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Well he was.
We were trying again toconvince him to get help again
and he was like in denial.
I'm not, I don't have a mentalillness.
You guys are just blowingthings out of proportion.
I'm fine, you know.
We just couldn't get hiscooperation.
It was like by December then, Iguess, where we were still
really concerned, trying tostick close to him and be nosy
(19:05):
and, you know, kind of keep ahandle on it, I guess, just to
see if he'd work it out.
I mean, people sometimes havepsychotic episodes and then they
come through it, right, youknow, I went and got his
medication myself from thepharmacy and said here, you know
, and he was like I've alreadygot it, I didn't need that, you
know.
It's like, yeah, I think you do, we're having those kinds of
discussions with him.
And then, and we saw him just acouple of weeks before the last
(19:27):
episode because he'd come toone of Cody's basketball games
and he and he seemed pretty okaythat day.
And it was like a week and ahalf or two weeks later when we
got the phone call that he haddriven his truck into the pond
at the Charlotte County Jailthey have a big pond out front
and been arrested for littering.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, that's what I heard.
It was like a class threefelony for littering.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah, because the truck weighed over 500 pounds.
Right, you know that's usuallypeople that go out, you know
dump loads of trash,construction debris in the woods
or whatever.
But no, they decided to chargehim.
And you know, they knew, theyknew that he had a mental
illness.
They knew, you know, he'd beenthere.
They knew that he was mentallyill.
I immediately wrote letters tothe judge.
I wrote a letter to thedistrict attorney's office.
(20:10):
Like within three days they hadcommunication on their desks
from me stating and pleading forthis to be treated as a mental
illness, not as a criminalmatter, and I just didn't get
anywhere with that.
So what was their thinking?
(20:31):
Or did you ever find out?
Why would they pursue this as acriminal act rather than just a
reach out for help?
Interestingly, two days agofinally talked to the head
prosecutor at the districtattorney's office, who I
directed the letter to, and shesaid she never saw the letter,
that she never got it.
I don't know if it was one ofthose situations where I wrote
to her and of course you knowshe's got other people who scan
her mail or whatever and hand itoff to different people.
(20:52):
I don't know what happened tothe letter, but she said that
she didn't get it.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Okay, Just so that we can clarify this for everyone
how long did this take?
What was the timeframe fromwhen this all started before you
actually saw the DA to find out?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Oh, this started well four years ago.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I haven't confronted her until now.
I met her in Tallahasseebecause I was up there for a
hearing and met her for thefirst time.
Did not expect to meet her thatday, frankly, when she walked
up to me and introduced herselfwith another person, there was
another person who introducedhimself and said oh and by the
way, this isn't her name and Ijust it stunned me because I
didn't know what she looked like.
(21:34):
I'd never seen her before, andI just looked at her and I said
I have been so mad at you for solong, which I think just really
caught her off guard.
And so then we had a longdiscussion.
She's somebody that I've beenwanting to talk to because I
have been angry.
The word that I had gotten backat that time was the defense
attorney had talked to the DA'soffice and that they were going
to go for the full three yearsand they didn't want to discuss
(21:56):
his mental health issues andthey were going for the max.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
That's the word I got and she, as I was telling her
this the other day, she's likeshaking her head and she said I
would have talked to you, Iwould have you know if I'd known
.
So I you know.
I really thought at the timeand that's why I've been angry
with her for so long.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Right right.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Because I just I thought that they were just cold
hearted.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I guess my question is was she believable?
Did you believe what she said?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
You know I tend to give people the benefit of the
doubt.
That's sort of my personality,yeah me too.
So I tend to believe her whenshe says that I'm hoping that
that's true.
I'm choosing to.
I guess I don't have to forgiveher because there was nothing
to forgive, but I have chosen tolet go of that Sure.
And by the end of ourconversation it was like well,
how can we work on thislegislation together?
(22:43):
What can we do now to make surethis doesn't happen to anybody
else?
And I expect that in the comingmonths I will be working with
her.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Well, that's a good thing.
As we know, this was a very badsituation and it turned out,
unfortunately, horribly, but ifsome good can come out of this,
the shining light that you'reputting forward is that you're
changing legislation that willhelp others in the future.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Right.
Well, you know the rest ofTristan's story there.
I don't want to skip over that.
But he went through the wholeprocess again like he had the
first time, being determinedthat he was incompetent to stand
trial.
This time he was literally insolitary although they don't
like for me to call it solitaryconfinement, but he was in rural
.
What did they call it?
He was in the infirmary, lockedin a cell for his protection
(23:30):
and everybody's protectionbecause of his mental health
issues, without a tablet,without a phone, without
newspapers or TV or anything butthe voices in his head, for
hundreds of days.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Before they determined that he was again
incompetent to stand trial andsent to the forensic facility.
After he was adjudicatedincompetent to stand trial, it
took another 117 days beforethey sent him for restoration,
and which is just crazy becausein Florida it's supposed to
happen within three days.
But anyway, at the end of thatwhole process he came back and
pled no contest and wassentenced to three years in
prison and he was transferredfrom the county jail to a prison
(24:08):
here in Florida and he livedonly 63 days.
The 63rd day he was sent out ona work detail and handed a
chainsaw and used the chainsawto take his own life.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Okay, I guess the big question, at least the one that
resonates with me, is why wouldthey give someone a chainsaw?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
That's the question that everybody asks.
You know it didn't make senseto me.
You know we know some of thedetails.
I can't really talk about someparts of this because we did end
up suing the Department ofCorrections here in Florida and
settled the case.
But you know, I think it camedown in part to miscommunication
within the facility because theperson who handed him the
chainsaw didn't know that he wasmentally ill.
(24:53):
He had just met Tristan andTristan had been put on the work
detail.
Um, that day he was put in afacility where it's like the end
of your sentence, like we'regonna now make sure you've got
some skills to go out in thecommunity and work when you get
home.
This is like the winding downpart of it, because they only
had 15 months left to serve atthat time and so you they have
(25:14):
those inmates do things like youknow, do a landscaping detail
so they can learn some skills.
So that day the guard asked forvolunteers.
They use all kinds of powertools.
You know lots of dangeroustools, but by that time they're
supposed to be okay to handle it.
So the guard asked he needed tovolunteer to handle the
(25:35):
chainsaw.
That day Tristan another guy youknow said yeah, we have
experience.
Tristan was the first one thatyou know.
He had a chainsaw and said canyou start this?
And yeah, he did.
He knew how to use a chainsaw,so, yeah, so that's one of the
problems being dealt with.
This litigation is that there'smore communication so that it
has to be documented If somebodyhas a mental illness and
(25:56):
they're classified as beingmentally ill, that their work
assignments have to be takeninto consideration and
documented if there's anyrestrictions or whatever.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
So when this all happened, reactions are going to
be horrible and it's going tobe hard to understand.
How did the prison handle this?
What was their tone, theirattitude in it?
How did it all come across whenyou found out?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Well, we got a phone call.
I was sitting at my deskworking that morning and I saw
Miami flash up on my phone andit didn't even occur to me.
I just didn't even think aboutTristan.
I thought it was anotherbusiness call.
When I answered the phone.
It was the chaplain and we hadabout a three-minute phone call
with him.
He just called to tell me thatTristan had been found dead that
(26:44):
morning and he couldn't tell meany of the details.
Gave me a phone number so thatI could call back to get more
details and, you know, refer usto the morgue.
Then I could contact them aswell.
You know, I really didn't talkto them very long.
Once he told me that Tristanhad been found dead, I was like
I hit the ground on.
I just was like devastated.
I handed the phone to my husbandso he handled that part of the
(27:05):
conversation, but it was soshort, so perfunctory, and you
know we did.
As soon as we got off the phonewe started calling back.
You know what happened?
We wanted to know, we wanted toknow details.
We wanted to know did he die ofnatural causes?
Had he been beaten up?
Had he been murdered?
You know we just didn't haveany answers at that point in
time and honestly, god, we couldnot get ahold of a single
(27:25):
person at the jail.
You know our phone calls keptgoing to those robocalls dial
push one for whatever, four forwhatever.
We tried every single button wecould push.
We even called the, pushed thebutton for the laundry to try to
get a message through.
You know, I did actually, Ithink, get a hold of a live
person there and said you know,my son was found dead there
(27:45):
today.
Nobody, I can't reach anybody.
Please get a message tosomebody and have somebody call
me back.
Well, we never heard.
I never to this day have talkedto anybody in the Department of
Corrections except for therecords department, when we
finally started trying to getrecords and, like my husband
said, they just circled theirwagons.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Really well, Did you get anything from them
eventually?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I mean it took like over a year for me to get his
records released.
We did get a hold of the morgueand found out that he had
committed suicide with achainsaw that day and we learned
that from them Fighting forrecords after that with the
Florida Department of LawEnforcement that were
investigating.
Yet they were the other agencybrought in to investigate it.
You know we just couldn't getany answers.
(28:26):
It was still underinvestigation.
We can't talk to you about this.
It was just insane.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
So did you ever get any calls from them that gave
you any comfort, or did theyever show any kind of empathy at
all?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
no, not any kind of empathy, definitely not.
We finally found out that theyhad ruled that there was no
wrongdo, no legal wrongdoing.
You know, nobody had harmed him, nobody had participated in it,
nobody had committed a crimeper se.
So but that wasn't.
It didn't answer questions.
No, so we, you know, we, webrought a lawsuit.
(29:04):
I finally was fortunate.
I had contacted lots ofdifferent attorneys who just
weren't interested in handlingthe case because I didn't have
answers for them.
I couldn't give them details.
Nobody wanted to take the case.
They were like you get thedetails first and we'll look
over the records and we'lldetermine if there's a case.
So we couldn't get anywhere.
But the Florida JusticeInstitute it's a law firm in
Miami, a nonprofit law firm thatreally advocates for criminal
(29:28):
justice issues request on theirwebsite they get hundreds of
them every month forrepresentation and telling
Tristan's story and about.
It was about three months afterI did that that I got a phone
call saying hey, we read whatyou wrote about your son.
We'd like to come over and talkto you about it and see if
there's a you know cause ofaction there that we can help
you with.
So what?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
happened, moving forward from that.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
So we did end up suing and you know, going
through that whole legal processthat you go through with a
wrongful death and through thediscovery.
There were lots of things thatwe learned that I can't talk
about now, but we did get someanswers.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Did you find any?
I'm trying to find the rightword comfort, isn't it?
But did you find, any case,anything where you could take?
And, after it was all said anddone, you heard all the
testimony.
You've heard everything whereyou could take a deep breath and
at least move forward in abetter way.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Well, you know, it helps to at least understand
what happened.
Sure, that helped us make somesense of it, because it was
senseless.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
But it didn't start to make sense to understanding.
You know that.
Exactly what happened duringthat time period?
There's so many answers we'llnever have, though.
I mean we don't know what wason Tristan's mind, and that's
probably one of the mostheartbreaking things you know.
I've said this many times if hehad been a college student off
to college who committed suicide, I would have wanted to talk to
his roommates and hisprofessors and try to figure out
(30:52):
what his mental state was andwhat was on his mind.
But when you're dealing withsomebody who was locked away at
prison, you can't talk toanybody.
Nobody will talk to me from theDepartment of Corrections about
what happened because ofliability and being concerned
that they're going to get introuble if they do.
And I can't talk to hisroommates because they're
inmates.
They're locked up and I mean Iwould love.
I think I would love.
(31:13):
I don't know.
I have mixed feelings aboutthis, because at first I felt
like I really wanted to talk tosomebody who was with him there
that day, who had observed him,who knew what he was like that
morning or the days before thathappened.
And now I'm not so sure.
I'm not so sure.
I want to know.
You know, it's just like itcould be.
It could make it easier, itcould make it harder.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I don't know so, but it is frustrating.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
So now you're doing a lot of advocacy work, is that
correct?
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I am.
There was one of the thingsthat happened shortly after
Tristan died and we got thatphone call.
Like within three or four daysof that, I got a phone call from
a journalist from CBS Miami.
His name's Jim DeFede, andsomeone had contacted him from
the prison and said, hey, thisis not getting any coverage,
(32:02):
this is not getting anyattention, it's not been
reported on.
This is a big deal and you needto know about it.
And he's an investigativejournalist that does like really
long pieces and stuff.
So he contacted me and he saidyou know I hate to be this way
he said that this story is goingto be told, whether you
participated in it or not,because I'm going to dig, I'm
going to find the details andI'm going to have, I want to
(32:23):
report, I want people to knowwhat happened to your son, but
it might be better for you to.
You know, help me with this sothat we can tell Tristan's story
.
Way, and you know I mean thatjust took my breath away.
I just at that point I wasfeeling shell-shocked because I
just found out that he died andI was like, well, do I want this
?
Do I want other people to knowabout this Do I?
How do I handle this with hissons?
(32:44):
How do I protect them?
Because at that point in timewe didn't know.
We didn't know all the details.
So that was a tough decision,but but I did decide.
I mean, we talked about it andwe decided, yeah, we'll start
talking to him and we'll seewhere it goes.
And right away Jim decided thisis not just a little story,
this is not going to need, thisdoesn't need to be addressed by
a five minute blurb on, you know, monday night TV.
(33:05):
This is something that has tobe investigated.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
How did it go moving forward with that?
Speaker 2 (33:17):
With his help and you know, between the two of us we
were able to really dig forrecords and get access to things
that you know most journalistsdon't get access to.
We gave him full access to allthe records that we got and he
ended up developing a wholedocumentary titled the Warehouse
the Life and Death of TristanMurphy.
You can find it on YouTube.
He's done a lot of follow-upinterviews, like he interviewed
the judge who had sentencedTristan and you know other
people who were involved in thecriminal justice system.
(33:39):
And out of that grew aninvitation last year to speak at
a hearing in Tallahassee beforethe criminal justice committee
where they brought in thedepartment of children and
family services and the DOC.
And I got to speak at thathearing explaining what happened
to Tristan and and SenatorBradley was the head of the
Criminal Justice Committee andshe really sunk her teeth into
(33:59):
this issue.
I also had the opportunity tomeet with Senator Albritton, who
is the current and was at thattime the incoming president of
the Senate and a one-on-one withhim, and you know he just took
the reins with this.
He's like this needs to be amajor part of my platform.
You know, when somebody comesinto office like that and it's
their two-year term to be Senatepresident.
(34:21):
They kind of get to pick someobjectives, some reforms that
they want to make a priority,and this is one that he chose to
do that with.
So right now, yes, through thelegislature.
We have the Tristan Murphy Actpassing through legislature
right now.
I was just there for a hearingon Wednesday before the Criminal
Justice Committee of the Houseof Representatives.
It's already passed theCriminal Justice Committee in
(34:43):
the Senate, several morecommittees to go before it lands
on the House floor and theSenate floor for full votes,
final votes.
But it's been well received andwhat this legislation does is it
really focuses on the front endof someone's involvement with
the criminal justice system,with there being an effort to
really identify right from theget-go, like within the first 24
(35:05):
hours, whether the individualhas mental health issues,
whether the actions that theyhad been arrested for could be
related to their mental healthand to have them evaluated on an
emergency basis and if there'ssome funding and some model
programs for how that might bestructured in the county jail,
with the hope that throughoutall of Florida counties will
(35:27):
start developing these programsso that people can get diverted
right out, right at thebeginning.
Get the mental health that theyneed, get the services they
need and become a productivemember of the community rather
than rotting in jail.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah, anything that can be diverted helps a lot.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Because once you get in the criminal justice system
and that was our experience withTristan we just we had to wait.
We had to wait for theirprocesses, we had to wait for
them to determine who'sincompetent to stand trial and
meanwhile, during that time, hebecame more and more mentally
ill.
So we're hoping that thispasses.
There's several other things inthe legislation that you know
would have helped in Tristan'scase.
Everybody now involved inlooking back on it you know
(36:06):
hindsight's- you know, whatever,yeah 2020.
Yeah, but everybody understandsand realizes this should have
really been handled sodifferently and he'd still be
with us if it had, if some ofthe legislation were in place.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
At least if something good comes out of something bad
, right, at least a step in theright direction of where it
needs to go.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, I don't want this tohappen to anybody, and that's
what I've been fighting for, youknow, this whole time is.
This has got to change.
This is, it's so broken.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Florida's maybe no different than any other state,
but here in Florida, you know,we have the highest number of
people in need of mental healthservices.
We're number one in need andwe're 49th in provision of
services, and 30% or so ofpeople in our prisons have
mental health issues.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Unfortunately, what you said is very prevalent all
across this country.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
I know it is.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Yeah, I talked with so many people across this
country.
I just spoke with a judge inNevada.
We had a very similardiscussion in the fact that
there's problems all across thiscountry.
We need to focus on legislationthat can be national rather
than just county by county.
But until we get that, we haveto do exactly what you're doing,
and that's fight on a locallevel.
(37:21):
By doing that, hopefully, wecan get enough people together
and we can change it on anational level.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Right.
Well, I feel like this is areal shift for Florida and I'm
really happy about that, becauseFlorida's been a really
hard-on-crime state.
And I mean our system here, ourprisons, are failing and
they're not working.
Financially they're not working.
There's no rehabilitation.
I mean, everybody's reallystarting to realize this isn't a
can that they can keep kickingdown the road, and they need to
(37:50):
address it.
And I think this is a greatfirst step to really think about
those who are especiallyvulnerable and try to shift them
towards treatment instead ofhandcuffs.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, Now, is there anything that I haven't touched
upon that you think is importantfor people to hear?
Speaker 2 (38:09):
You know I will say that there's one part of this
legislation that doesn't dealwith one of the problems,
legislation that doesn't dealwith one of the problems and I
think that that is.
You know, it's difficult totreat somebody with a mental
illness, particularly a mentalillness like schizophrenia.
But I think that sometimesthere's not an understanding.
I mean, I understand thatbecause we didn't even
understand how to deal with this.
(38:29):
But you know there'smedications and there's
treatments and there's newtreatments that can be really
effective in treatingschizophrenia in particular.
There's now injectables thatcan last a long time 30 days or
two months or whatever.
That helps people withschizophrenia not fall off the
medicine wagon.
You know there needs to befunding on the national level
(38:50):
there.
I have real concerns, I guess,about Medicaid and try not to
get political here, but you knowall the talk in Washington
about cutting the Medicaidprogram.
People don't understand thatmost of these people with mental
illnesses, or a lot of them,who are in need of these
services, I mean they get itfrom Medicaid and when we cut
Medicaid I mean there's justgoing to be a tsunami of people
(39:10):
flooding into the criminaljustice system if Medicaid
funding is cut and there justneeds to be really an emphasis
on the mental health provisions,the provisions of mental health
care.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I appreciate you takingthe time to come on my show.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
You're welcome.
Happy to be part of it.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah, it was a pleasure to have you.
Thanks again, again Thanks fortaking the time out of your busy
schedule to listen to our showtoday.
We hope that you enjoyed it asmuch as we enjoyed bringing it
(39:51):
to you.
If you know anyone that wouldlike to tell us their story,
send them to tonymantorcomContact then they can give us
their information so one daythey may be a guest on our show.
One more thing we ask telleveryone everywhere about why
Not Me, the World, theconversations we're having and
(40:13):
the inspiration our guests giveto everyone everywhere that you
are not alone in this world.
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