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- Maryland /
Regional
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Gunman committed to
psychiatric hospital Baltimorean killed neighbor with
shotgun
(Baltimore Sun)
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- National /
International
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- Opinion
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Gunman committed to psychiatric hospitalBaltimorean killed
neighbor with shotgun
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- By Melissa Harris
- Baltimore Sun
- Saturday, July 4, 2009
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- In Marvin Ferguson's mind, his next-door neighbor was
the leader of "the enoch people" - an alliance of pixies and
fairies plotting to attack his 8-year-old daughter on an
October 2006 morning.
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- But in reality, Billy Horne had just stopped wiping down
his truck to chat with the newspaper deliveryman when
Ferguson charged from his house with a 12-gauge shotgun and
opened fire. Horne died at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical
Center.
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- Last month, Baltimore Circuit Judge Martin P. Welch
found Ferguson, a paranoid schizophrenic, guilty of murder
but not criminally responsible, Maryland's legal term for
insanity. He was committed to the Clifton T. Perkins
Hospital Center until such time that a judge finds that
Ferguson is no longer a threat to himself or others.
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- The disorder appears to have taken hold of Ferguson,
then a bus driver with a fiancee and no criminal record, in
2005.
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- From Jan. 1, 2005, to Oct. 1, 2006, the date of Horne's
killing, Baltimore police were dispatched 13 times to
Ferguson's home in the 3800 block of Lyndale Ave., according
to a department spokesman.
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- At least twice, in December 2005 and March 2006,
Ferguson was involuntarily committed - a process known as an
emergency petition - to Union Memorial Hospital for a
psychiatric evaluation, according to a source with knowledge
of Ferguson's medical history who declined to be named
because the records are confidential.
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- During the March 2006 visit, in which he was kept at the
hospital for three days, Ferguson was diagnosed with several
disorders, including paranoid schizophrenia, and medical
records indicate that Ferguson had been sleeping with knives
and axes under his bed, the source said.
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- It's not clear whether doctors at Union Memorial
prescribed medication or recommended treatment. If so,
Ferguson likely didn't follow it, said his attorney, Timothy
M. Dixon.
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- "An emergency petition only gets you to an emergency
room to be evaluated," said Susan Steinberg, forensics
director for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental
Hygiene, who said she was speaking about the process
generally.
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- "And once you're discharged, there's no court order
hanging over your head. ... When a doctor writes you a
prescription, you can walk out and throw it all in the
garbage," Steinberg said.
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- According to prosecutor Cynthia Banks, after killing
Horne, Ferguson immediately ran inside his own home and fell
asleep. Police interpreted his lack of response as a
barricade, and after forcing entry into the home, they
discovered a house in disarray.
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- Ferguson had ripped off kitchen countertops and torn
down walls. He had essentially tunneled into the ceiling and
begun living there, Dixon said.
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- "The mental health system doesn't have the resources to
deal with these kinds of things," the lawyer said.
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- It was more than a year before Ferguson was ruled
competent to stand trial.
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- Ferguson's family did not attend the final court
proceeding in June out of respect for Horne's wife and son,
who ran out of their home at the sound of gunfire and
watched Ferguson stand over him and fire the fatal shots.
Ferguson turned his gun on them, firing and scaring them
inside, Banks, the prosecutor, said in court.
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- Horne's family was "extremely angry" that Ferguson was
being sent to a psychiatric hospital instead of prison,
Banks told the judge.
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- "They don't understand" mental illness, Banks told
Welch. "In their mind, he's not mentally ill. He's just
crazy."
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- Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun.
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