Jailed man with mental illness dies
He had been indicted in slaying of parents
The Times-Picayune
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
From staff reports
A New Orleans man with a history of mental problems died of possible cardiac arrest Monday night after being found unresponsive in his jail cell about 15 years after his release from a state mental facility following the slaying of his parents, Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman said.
An autopsy today will be conducted today on Berthawe J. Edwards Jr., 46, said chief coroner’s investigator John Gagliano.
Gusman said Edwards was found unresponsive by a cellmate in a two-man cell at Orleans Parish Prison on Monday about 10:20 p.m. The cellmate called for help, and the medical staff tried to revive him and called for an ambulance. Edwards was pronounced dead at 11:17 p.m. at University Hospital.
Gusman said Edwards had been in jail since Feb. 27 for a probation violation connected to Criminal District Court in New Orleans.
But Edwards’ sister, Brenda Hartford of New Orleans, said she understood one of his doctors sent him to the parish prison. Hartford said her brother suffered from schizophrenia and paranoia and had taken medication for his mental conditions since he was 18. She said her brother, who was going to a medical facility on the West Bank, apparently needed further treatment. But he either did not want to go to a certain medical facility, the facility did not have room for him or the facility did not have what he needed, Hartford said.
She said Edwards was likely in a medical section of the parish prison because the jail’s medical personnel had to give him his medicine. “He took medications every day,” Hartford said.
Edwards had been taking medications for his mental condition since before his parents were killed in their New Orleans home in 1980, when Edwards was 18. He had been committed to Charity Hospital once that year before his parents, Berthawe Edwards Sr., an employee of the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff’s Office, and Rosemary Edwards, were shot to death in their home.
Edwards was indicted on charges of first-degree murder in the deaths in 1980 and was found innocent by reason of insanity.
Edwards was sent to the forensic unit at Jackson, Hartford said. She said her brother was released 12 to 15 years ago, then was sent to a halfway house for three years in Baton Rouge.
After that, he had to report to a probation officer and another forensic facility.
Hartford said her brother had not been in any serious trouble since his release. He lived with her. “He really didn’t have any worries. He worked when he could. I didn’t have any problems out of him at all. He basically did what he was supposed to do,” Hartford said.
She said Edwards worked as a carpenter for a company. He worked steadily until his treatments at a clinic became more frequent. “He told the boss he couldn’t come in every day, and the boss told him when he could, come,” Hartford said.
She said her brother was married that but he and his wife were separated.
Related:
Jindal’s mental health plans may provide relief in metro area
by Laura Maggi, The Times-Picayune
Tuesday April 15, 2008, 12:29 PM
For some families in New Orleans, dealing with a loved one’s severe mental illness has meant several trips to the coroner’s office, asking that a relative be committed for a few days.
Although a 72-hour coroner commitment might give those families a temporary reprieve, these brief stays in a hospital typically don’t provide lasting solutions to mentally ill people in crisis, said Dr. Jeffrey Rouse, the psychiatrist in charge of all commitments for the Orleans Parish coroner. Too many times, people with paranoid schizophrenia or other serious disorders don’t find sustained assistance after they are inevitably released from the hospital, he said. They miss appointments or stop taking their medications, or both. Sometimes they end up in jail. …
To complement the new programs, Jindal also touts proposed legislation to change the way the state deals with mentally ill people, including a potentially controversial bill that would allow judges to mandate outpatient treatment for people who have been repeatedly hospitalized or have threatened violence. That bill was inspired by the January death of New Orleans police officer Nicola Cotton, killed with her own gun by a man whose family said is a paranoid schizophrenic who spent a lifetime in and out of hospitals.
The lack of effective mental health services can cause a crisis for law enforcement officers, who encounter the mentally ill at their most vulnerable and potentially dangerous. New Orleans police estimate they get at least 200 calls a month to take a person in crisis to the hospital. Rouse said he commits an average of 100 people a month for a 72-hour emergency period, and provides 250 second opinions monthly to patients already in hospitals who doctors believe need to stay longer.
At the Orleans Parish jail facilities, about 7 percent of the average 2,200 inmates see a psychiatrist, said Dr. Michael Higgins, the criminal sheriff’s chief psychiatrist.
“Sometimes jail is the only option to make sure somebody gets care,” said Dr. Samuel Gore, the jail’s medical director.
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