Quote Originally Posted by Westdawg View Post
I have known Tommy (the guy who killed Dr. Witt) since I was in high school. I wasn?t close friends with him, and he was a few years older than me. But we have several mutual close friends and knew each other as acquaintances more or less.
Yes, he had a severe mental episode back in 2012 in Madison county over his fianc?/or something leaving him. He barricaded himself in the House and SWAT had to remove him. He was never charged, but had to go through some psych Evals and other treatment. He , surprisingly, didn?t lose his license, or it may have been temporarily suspended while he got treatment. But he has worked in nursing pretty much since that all happened. He also had a couple side gigs - DJ and some kind of other odd job. He did become somewhat of an oddball after all that happened, though.
He was back in church and always sharing videos of song specials and other things from church services on FB. He had also gotten back into getting his body healthy the past couple years - always sharing pics of before/after of his body transformation into a healthier person. Everybody was happy for him. He seemed to be doing better. But he never really seemed fully ?back?. Most of us just attributed it to the fact that people change and he had experienced some graphic mental and emotional stuff during all that from 2012.
Just a recently as a couple weeks ago, he had posted something about someone ?special? in his life and how he was in a really great place. He was back working in Kosy, and his kids and family and friends are there. But obviously things weren?t as they appeared on the outside.
The charges from Kosciusko that involved Dr. Witt - from what I have been told by mutual friends this weekend from KO - is that she went to his apartment/home and was trying to get her stuff and some KO d of altercation occurred. Regardless of what ?IT? was, She pressed charges against him and he was arrested for it in the middle of this past week - guessing the day it happened. The only thing that any of us can assume/guess at this time is that he either knew it would end up costing him his job/license or was told by his employer that it was going to, or he just lost it completely over the idea of losing her.......
....and then as a result you have Saturday?s tragic event unfold. I think given his past, more should have been done to make sure he was ?stable? after his arrest, especially being in his hometown. Somebody should have taken steps. Something needed to have been in his record that would have had authorities taken that one extra step to make sure he was alright....
Mental health is not taken very seriously in this country. From our vets to the everyday ?joe?, we kind of just throw them to the side....and then want to talk about how much of a monster they are. True, they may have made some
monster-esque action, and they are fully guilty for those actions/decisions - Tommy made a decision and then murdered her and he should be held fully accountable for what he did - but we also need to take a long hard look at how we are/aren?t helping people.
I was shocked when I saw him back not long after that incident in 2012. I'm not sure about the nursing license regulations since I'm not a nurse myself. Like I said he was a case manager- a lot of them have nursing degrees- but they mainly expedite discharge for patients. Which is how I worked with him a little bit- because when you are in rehab like myself the case managers always want to know what we recommend so that we can get the ball rolling. Case managers very rarely if ever dispense meds and things like that to patients so I'm not sure if that was a factor in him keeping his license or not at the time.

In my field if I get arrested I have to report it to the state OT board. Then there is a hearing and they decide whether to suspend/revoke/reinstate your license. I think it's kind of honor code in a way though- I'm sure there are a few people that check "no" in the have you ever been arrested before box and just hope the board doesn't find out. More than likely if they had a hearing he probably just presented the psychiatric testing showing that he was unstable and they approved him like you said.

You're spot on about mental health being underserved.