The woman, who lived on the wrong side of town, showed up at the Mecklenburg County Clerk of Court’s Office late one afternoon asking, no, begging the government to put her husband away. She said she was frightened, afraid to go home, afraid he would kill her.
He was crazy, she said.
She had come to the right place. The Clerk of Court’s Office could issue a warrant and have him arrested and held without bond until he could be evaluated by an expert.
But it was late, almost quitting time, and the court official who had to make the call didn’t want to miss his ride. He told me –I was a newspaper reporter– that he had wanted to send that woman on her way and go home. But he hesitated. What if she was right?
He decided he would not take that chance. He told his ride to go on without him. He stayed late, filled out the necessary paper work, and had the man arrested that evening.
The next day a private psychiatrist paid for by the man’s family talked with him for half an hour and then told a court clerk that the man was not psychotic, release him.
A day later, Charlotte police said, that fellow went looking for his wife, the wife whose attempt to have him committed to a mental institution had been overruled by an expect. When he couldn’t find her he took two of her sisters hostage before killing one with a pistol and stabbing the other one in the back.
Coming Friday: Death By Obit