Posted on 03/08/2007 7:15:42 PM PST by Graybeard58
A Manitou Springs man who stabbed his 7-year-old daughter to death in 2000 because he thought she was the devil has asked for the third time to be released from a mental institute.
Robert Dunn’s request was denied Tuesday by District Court Judge Larry Schwartz, who called the killing barbaric.
Dunn, 57, was found not guilty by reason of insanity for the June 2000 killing of his daughter, Aaren, and sent to the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo.
Dunn also asked in 2003 and 2004 to be “conditionally released,” meaning he would live on his own with daily check-ins and weekly therapy and then gradually have fewer restrictions.
“I continue to return to the barbarity of this crime,” Schwartz wrote in the most recent ruling. “The defendant butchered his 7-year-old daughter with a crowbar. He almost severed her head from her body.
“Those facts are important, not because they are inflammatory or excite an unreasonably passionate response, but rather because they demonstrate how grossly psychotic he was and how far beyond the reach of human compassion or reason he had digressed.”
Without the medicine Dunn takes, Schwartz wrote, “I would have to believe he could regress to such a condition again.”
Shortly after the killing, Dunn told a psychiatrist at the mental institute the numbers 666 kept reappearing on his cell phone and he became convinced the devil had overtaken his daughter’s body.
“He thought the devil was trying to take over Manitou Springs, and the devil’s minions were trying to take over him and his daughter,” Dr. David Johnson testified in December 2000.
Dunn believed he was the only person who could save the town, Johnson said. At one point, Dunn told the psychiatrist, “I thought they were going to pin a medal on me for saving the town of Manitou Springs.”
Johnson testified Dunn believed his daughter’s soul was already in heaven when he hit her with a crowbar, stabbed her neck and chest repeatedly with two kitchen knives and tried to rip off her head.
“He thought Aaren and him were on the same wavelength and she knew she’d been taken over by the devil,” Johnson said.
Johnson diagnosed Dunn as suffering from bipolar disorder and psychotic episodes, meaning he had severe mood swings, withdrew from reality and had delusions.
If he is "cured" then he can go to jail and finish off the rest of the sentence he should have received.
I agree and it ought to be life without parole. I do favor the death penalty for him though. I see no need to keep kooks like this around. The thought of him free at any point is very alarming.
"If he is "cured" then he can go to jail and finish off the rest of the sentence he should have received."
"I agree and it ought to be life without parole.
I do favor the death penalty for him though.
I see no need to keep kooks like this around.
The thought of him free at any point is very alarming."
I agree with both and bump this thread!
If he's truly cured, the only thing he should be asking for is enough rope to hang himself with.
Colorado ping
People like this are very scary. A lot of the time they seem as rational as anyone. But their mood can change in an instant and there is no limit to how irrational they can be or to what they will do. Their emotions completely overwhelm them.
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Mental institution or jail permanently. If he's free, within six months to a year he'll be off his meds and back with a crowbar.
He was found to be insane, which is a hard sell in a Texas court.
Confined at Rusk, our state mental institution, and medicated he has returned to a semblance of sanity. Every so often there is a hearing about his possible release. His sister goes in and asks that he continue in confinement. I don't blame her one little bit. He's one dangerous crazy guy.
He was found to be insane, which is a hard sell in a Texas court.
Confined at Rusk, our state mental institution, and medicated he has returned to a semblance of sanity. Every so often there is a hearing about his possible release. His sister goes in and asks that he continue in confinement. I don't blame her one little bit. He's one dangerous crazy guy.
Confound it! I don't know how that posted twice. Maybe I need a new mouse.
Yes they are. IMO he should never ever get out of prison. God knows what he is capable of doing if his mood changed. ~P~
I saw on tv, a guy who had killed his mother then ate her brains. If that doesn't define insanity, I don't know what does. They had him in prison though, in the psycho ward.
No where near a record. One night I saw a reply repeated 8 times. That may not even be the record.
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