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Chisum's family knew of mental health diagnosis, says he's 'not an evil person'

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal (TX) - 2/7/2016

Feb. 07--Justin Chisum wasn't the same person his girlfriend had grown to know over the past year.

"I was stunned when I heard that he had been arrested and charged with Kylee's death," she wrote in an affidavit. "He is not the same person that I knew before. He seems confused, disoriented and argumentative. His thoughts are not coherent. He appears to be very seriously ill and in need of help."

The two met in January 2014 and began dating soon after becoming friends. She joined his church and said he was "always a very kind, decent, respectful and gentle man."

Despite giving up parental rights, Chisum's girlfriend said, he was still a loving and caring father who looked forward to spending his weekends with his 4-year-old daughter, Kylee Forrest.

"He played with her, he read to her, he taught her right from wrong," she wrote in the affidavit. "He cooked for her, made sure that she was clean and well cared for."

She didn't immediately know about his mental illness. And, even when he did tell her he suffered from schizophrenia, she noticed some differences in their friendship, but overall, it wasn't impaired.

It wasn't until late 2014 that she noticed gradual changes in Chisum's mood.

He was concerned about the side effects from the medicine he was taking to treat his schizophrenia. And, under his doctor's supervision, he began taking different medication.

Chisum eventually checked himself into Sunrise Canyon Hospital on Jan. 21, 2015.

He stayed overnight and was released 24 hours later.

"He continued to grow worse after he was released from the hospital," the girlfriend wrote in the affidavit. "His mood became more unstable toward the end of January."

Ten days after being released from the mental health facility, he was arrested on a murder charge while walking around naked in a Lubbock neighborhood. Kylee was a few blocks away in his apartment, dead from blunt-force trauma.

Chisum's father, Mike Chisum -- like everyone else -- wonders what happened that day Kylee died.

"If there's any kind of message that somehow gets out, it's that Justin was not a bad person. He wasn't an evil person and it's hard to imagine for somebody to look at what happened and think that somehow Justin is an evil person," he said. "But he was in many ways as innocent as Kylee."

Mental illness

Over the past decade, Justin was hospitalized and treated for mental health disorders at seven different psychiatric hospitals in Texas, North Carolina and California.

With Kylee's mother in and out of jail and Justin diagnosed with a severe mental disorder, Kylee's great aunt Courtney Forrest became the child's sole managing conservator in 2011.

Courtney knew about Justin's mental health -- sometimes he would say odd things and she could tell when he wasn't acting like himself. But, she never thought he could harm anyone.

Even after a year, Courtney said Kylee's death is surreal; something she never saw coming.

She said there needs to be more awareness of mental health issues and child safety in general.

"What is sad is that mental health is an issue that needs to be addressed in a different way than it is," Forrest said in an email to the A-J. "We don't know enough about it to properly prevent things like this from happening. We aren't the only ones who have suffered a tragic loss or incident because someone with mental (illness) didn't get the help they needed."

About 500 children die at the hands of their parents annually, according to a study conducted by researchers at Brown University.

"Over the last three decades, U.S. parents have committed filicide -- the killing of one's child -- about 500 times every year," according to a news release published on the university's website in 2014. "The horrifying instances are often poorly understood, but a recent study provides the first comprehensive statistical overview of the tragic phenomenon."

Phillip Resnick, who has specialized in forensic psychiatry for more than 40 years and personally examined over 80 parents accused of killing their children, created a widely used classification for parents who kill their children, according to an article published by psychiatrist Sara West.

The classification, created in 1969, identifies five reasons why a parent would kill a child, including when a parent thinks killing the child is in the child's best interest; when the parent is psychotic and kills the child with no rational motive; when the child is considered a hindrance; when the parent accidentally kills the child of unintentional abuse; and when the parent kills the child as a means of getting revenge on a spouse.

Resnick declined a request for an interview with the A-J about his extensive research since he examined Chisum after his arrest.

Evaluating Chisum

After Chisum's arrest, his initial attorneys requested a competency exam, saying the murder suspect was not fit to stand trial in his present state of mind.

The motion, filed in March 2015, contained affidavits from three doctors who all said it was unlikely he would be found competent to stand trial at that time.

Resnick viewed video of Chisum's interview with Lubbock police and looked at his medical records -- including Chisum's overnight stay at a local mental health facility 10 days before Kylee's death.

He also conducted his own four-and-a-half-hour interview with Chisum.

"Mr. Chisum's schizophrenia interferes with his ability to convey information to his attorney and causes him to fail to recognize the severity of the potential sentence if convicted of the pending charges," Resnick wrote in an affidavit included in the motion.

Lubbock-based psychiatrist Dr. Arun Patel, who interviewed Chisum on Feb. 21 at the county jail, described Chisum's condition as poorly controlled, and licensed psychologist Philip J. Davis said Chisum "exhibited symptoms of confused thinking and delusional beliefs."

After the regional public defender for capital cases was appointed to Chisum's case, his new attorneys filed a motion to withdraw the previously granted motion suggesting incompetency.

The judge approved that motion in May 2015.

Mike Chisum said in an interview last week that his son has stabilized his medication and appears to be doing well.

"For someone superficially talking to him, he seems to be fine," Mike said during the phone interview with the A-J. "There's lots of speculation (about) what happened with the doctors and his meds ... but that's all pure speculation and the details of what happened, I know very little today than I knew a year ago when I got the call about what happened."

Despite Justin's mental illness, Mike Chisum said his son "would be incapable of hurting him or anyone in his right mind."

"Myself and the whole family are really still in a huge loss," Mike said. "Kylee was my grandchild and we loved her as we loved my son and we don't understand what happened. We will learn more if this ever goes to trial.

"I'm still at a loss trying to -- I don't know what happened and I can't understand what happened, nor can any of the family and it's just a tragedy for all of us."

sarah.rafique@lubbockonline.com

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