From the duct jacket- Critically acclaimed author and psychoanalyst Mikita Brottman offers literary true crime writing at its best, taking us into the life of a murderer after his conviction—when most stories end but the defendant's life goes on.
On February 21, 1992, 22-year-old Brian Bechtold walked into a police station in Port St. Joe, Florida and confessed that he’d shot and killed his parents in their family home in Silver Spring, Maryland. He said he’d been possessed by the devil. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and ruled “not criminally responsible” for the murders on grounds of insanity.
But after the trial, where do the "criminally insane" go? Brottman reveals Brian's inner life leading up to the murder, as well as his complicated afterlife in a maximum security psychiatric hospital, where he is neither imprisoned nor free. During his 27 years at the hospital, Brian has tried to escape and been shot by police, and has witnessed three patient-on-patient murders. He’s experienced the drugging of patients beyond recognition, a sadistic system of rewards and punishments, and the short-lived reign of a crazed psychiatrist-turned-stalker.
In the tradition of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Couple Found Slain is an insider’s account of life in the underworld of forensic psych wards in America and the forgotten lives of those held there, often indefinitely.
Review- An interesting but flawed nonfiction book about a murder and the life after for the killer. Brian Bechtold, after struggling for years with an undiagnosed mental illness, killed both of his parents then fled to their second home in Florida before turning himself in. He was judged to be not criminally responsible because of a mental break due to the untreated mental illness. Brottman met Bechtold when she was doing a book club in the hospital he was living in. She gets to know him, his crime, and his struggle to get answers about his life and why he is still in this hospital. Brottman gets pulled into his world and sees things from his perspective but I feel that we, the reader, lose some insight into the greater picture of mental hospitals and their patients. She wants the reader to see some of the problems with mental hospitals and how impossible it is to get out of one once you are in. I read and would recommend to read this book with the knowledge that Brottman is on Bechtold’s side, so she is coming from a very particular place and presents the story in that way. With that knowledge, if you are interested in this book, you should read it, it was very interesting.
I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.
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