[Aria]

"John Violette has been described by his friends and family, as a great man. A fun, laid back surfer dude type of guy, with a winning personality who made friends easily. He was a family man, a church going man, the devoted husband of his wife Amber and a doting father to their daughter Katlin. Life was good for John. He had a steady job working for Lowe’s Home Improvement, a lovely home, a caring wife, and a beautiful 4 year old little girl. So what could ever cause a man like this to snap and commit an act of unspeakable horror? Perhaps years and years of untreated schizophrenia.

John Violette’s first trip to a California psychiatric hospital was back in the 1990’s. John was in his mid twenties and was displaying behavior that had grown increasingly bizarre. Behavior such as violent outbursts, talking to voices no one else could hear, paranoia, thinking people were following him, and trying to jump from a moving vehicle. His family also speculates that John was using drugs, but could never officially verify what, if any, he was using.

The family tried to enter John into a drug rehabilitation program, but he ran out, later turning up at a hospital emergency room in a frenzied state. Drug screens done that night could show nothing in his system. John was readmitted to a mental health facility. After a short stint in the hospital, a doctor officially diagnosed John Violette as a paranoid schizophrenic and recommend that he be released with a prescription for an anti-psychotic medication to keep his illness under control.

After returning home in his newly medicated state, his family became concerned that the pills he was taking were making him sluggish. They notice his speech had slowed a bit. Doubtful of the doctor’s schizophrenia diagnosis, John’s sister Denise urged him to stop taking his medication. He did. According to Denise, that was the last time John ever took medication to keep his paranoid schizophrenia under control.

After a few months, John seemed to be on the mend. He felt well enough to move away from his family in California and make a move to North Carolina. It was there that he started attending a Baptist church and frequenting their social events for singles. It was there at the Colonial Baptist Church that he met his future wife Amber. The couple fell in love and got married. For a few years all was well. John was able to maintain steady employment, the couple continued to attend church on a regular basis, and in 2002 after purchasing a new home their daughter Katlin was born.

At this point, it might seem as though John’s troubled past was behind him. But schizophrenia is not a mental illness to be taken lightly. People who suffer from this disease can suppress it for years and be perfectly fine, upstanding members of society. But more often than not, something snaps. Voices start being heard again. The looming dread of being followed starts to creep back in to every day life. You start feeling the grip of panic more and more frequently. Suddenly loved ones begin to look evil. Houseplants begin to look like strategically concealed microphones, recording your every word. Grocery store cashiers look like government agents sent to profile your every purchase. The hell of living this existence alone started to wear on John Violette. So he did what any man who put his faith in God would do. He read his bible.

On the morning of January 12th 2007, Amber Violette was preparing for a day at work as usual. John had abruptly quit his job with Lowe’s the day before, and was acting a bit… off. Katlin Violette, undoubtedly too young to understand that anything might be wrong with her father, was looking forward to a day of alone time with her dad. After all, John had always been the “fun” parent who loved to organize living room campouts and joke around. But that morning, it seemed as though that was the last thing on John’s mind.

As his wife prepared to leave, John begged her repeatedly to stay. Clearly terrified he explained to his wife that the apocalypse was imminent, and that a major disaster was primed to wipe out the eastern seaboard. Perhaps upon hearing this, Amber briefly considered calling out of work that day. Perhaps she thought she ought to stay with her husband, or hire a sitter for Katlin while she brought him to the nearest health facility. Any of these options would have been better than the chaos that was going to unfold, but that morning Amber left her ranting and visibly distraught husband and went to work.

Now the voices in John’s head were getting louder. Angrier. In John’s mind he was hearing the voice of God that morning, and God was telling him that his daughter had been invaded by an evil force. This was not John’s first time hearing the voice of God in his head. A month earlier, God had told him he could help save the world from evil and destruction by joining the “Christ Intelligence Agency”… CIA. The voice grew more persistent, telling John that the only way to rid the world of this demon was to kill it, and remove it’s head so that the spirit could not re-inhabit the body. So John did what he was told. He ran into the kitchen, grabbed a knife and stabbed his daughter to death. After he was sure she had died he decapitated her, stuffing her head into a trash can and commanding the family’s dog to make sure the spirit did not escape.
Then, John Violette ran.

In John’s mind, he needed to get off the east coast. He needed to get to other members of the Christ Intelligence Agency in Montana, to await the end of the world as predicted in the bible’s book of Revelation. Problem was, John wasn’t able to book a flight. He found one to Washington DC and boarded the plane. I wonder if any of the crew noticed him acting strangely? If he tried to share his predictions. He must have had the mental clarity to change his clothing before attempting to board an airplane. After many flights, I have been delayed more than once over a lighter or a silver belt buckle, so I’m sure if he’d shown up covered in his daughter’s blood, someone would have noticed. Once he got to DC, John holed himself up in a hotel with his bible and waited for the worst.

Around lunchtime, Amber came home to check in on her husband and daughter. Perhaps she was concerned about her husband’s strange behavior that morning, but it was well known that the family frequently made time to have lunch together so it wouldn’t have been unusual for her to come home mid day. But this day, something had gone horribly, hideously wrong. Upon walking into her home, Amber found her daughter’s headless body laying in the hallway. There was blood everywhere. John was nowhere to be found.

*I have to pause here and calm my lurching stomach. I cannot imagine the absolute horror that woman must have experienced seeing her baby that way.*
Amber frantically dialed 911, knowing there was nothing she could do. In a chilling call, Amber can he heard telling the dispatcher:

“Her head’s off! I can’t do anything! She’s dead! Don’t you get it? I can’t look! I can’t look! My baby … that’s my baby!”

Amber stood there amidst the chaos. She had expected to come home and have lunch with the two people she loved most in the world, but relatively speaking, both of them were already gone. Police arrived and began following the paper trail John had left that morning on his credit card, for both the plane ticket to Washington DC and the hotel he was staying at. When Police finally caught up with him, he was screaming excerpts from the book of Revelation and warning the officers that the end was near. After nearly ten years of keeping his illness dormant, John had finally reached the end of the line. He was immediately placed under arrest for the murder of his daughter Katlin.

John Violette’s trial was wrought with emotion and grief. Family and friends insisted over and over that this was not the man they had known and loved. They collectively wondered why this tragedy had happened. What I find frustrating, is that all the signs were there, and no one did anything.

John had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic and his family refused to believe the doctor, after putting him in the hospital looking for answers. He was put on medication to get his delusions under control and his family encouraged him to stop taking it. He quit his job and began sharing disturbing theories about the end of the world, but still he was left alone with a helpless child while his wife went to work and no one did anything. John Violette was left to fall through the cracks and a little girl lost her life over something that could have been prevented. “”I look back and I think, ‘We should never have let him out of that place’ said Denise Violette, John’s sister. As they say, hindsight is always 20/20.

John never stood trial for his daughter’s murder. His attorney Bob Denning entered a plea of insanity, saying that John Violette had no idea what he was doing the day he murdered his daughter and could not be held accountable. In a statement pleading for mercy from the court, Amber Violette begged for her husband to be placed into a mental hospital instead of a prison. “I want him to be treated. I still have hope” said Amber. Three doctors who testified at the trial were in agreement that this was a deeply disturbed man, not a criminal. On Thursday January 3rd, 2008 nearly one year after the murder of Katlin Violette, Superior Court Judge Jack Thompson declared John Violette not guilty by reason of insanity."

Here are some videos of the news of it:

http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/1137463/

[dooshman]

This was a touching story. And it's sad on both accounts: the death of the child, and the sickness of the father. I worked an entire year at a mental institution in Washington DC, and I can tell you first hand: for those suffering from mental illness, it is a living hell. Truly, these people have no control of their lives. We take ours for granted, because we have the ability of tell right from wrong. For the mentally ill, at times, everything is a hodgepodge of sounds, thoughts and emotions. Let it be known, however, occurrences like Aria's story are very rare indeed. By and far, the mentally ill are more apt to destroy themselves before they will hurt others.

Great post, Aria.

[Hordepally]

If and when he does get well I wonder how he'll be able to live with himself knowing what he did.

[dooshman]

Originally Posted by Hordepally ↗

If and when he does get well I wonder how he'll be able to live with himself knowing what he did.

Unfortunately, schizophrenia is a lifelong illness, with no cure.

[CharlieInTexas]

I have something called panic disorder (panic attacks caused by over production of the chemical produced during fear). I have met and spoken with a girl who has schizophrenia. She said she hears voices clear as day like they are standing there. Sometimes the voices are hateful, destructive, sexual, etc. I can only imagine that hell.

[Psychonautical]

Reads like some sort of terrifying short story. I agree with you Aria, can't imagine what the mom felt when she came home.

Mental illnesses are not to be taken lightly, and they usually don't just go away or get better without any treatment/medication although the medication is sometimes worse than the illness itself.

Life's fucked, so's the mind.

[BluderFly]

so sad. what a cute lil girl...she looks like "kelly" from Barbie. :(

[gimlet]

California, the weather is great, but it attracts fruits and nuts...

[shooterb]

^^- dude, get a clue- Great post, Aria, good info-

[wolfie]

New details are being learned with the use MRI. Schizophrenia appears to destroy parts of the brain that is linked to coherent reason. One thing for sure a schizophrenic person gets worse and it now looks like certain parts of the brain is slowly destroyed. Causing the increase in severity.