Shooter in Family Murder/Suicide on High Level of Antipsychotics

3
254

Denis Bay had high levels of prescription drugs used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar illness in his blood on February 3, when he shot and killed his wife, two children and himself, say toxicology reports released yesterday. 911 dispatchers described his subdued and mellow attitude while informing them that he had just shot his family, then shooting himself.

Article →             Video →                 Discuss →

***

Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

***

Mad in America has made some changes to the commenting process. You no longer need to login or create an account on our site to comment. The only information needed is your name, email and comment text. Comments made with an account prior to this change will remain visible on the site.

Previous articleWomen on SSRIs Less Likely To Breastfeed
Next articleNotes on a Scandal
Kermit Cole
Kermit Cole, MFT, founding editor of Mad in America, works in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a couples and family therapist. Inspired by Open Dialogue, he works as part of a team and consults with couples and families that have members identified as patients. His work in residential treatment — largely with severely traumatized and/or "psychotic" clients — led to an appreciation of the power and beauty of systemic philosophy and practice, as the alternative to the prevailing focus on individual pathology. A former film-maker, he has undergraduate and master's degrees in psychology from Harvard University, as well as an MFT degree from the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia. He is a doctoral candidate with the Taos Institute and the Free University of Brussels. You can reach him at [email protected].

3 COMMENTS

  1. It is like they are trying to say that the reason it happened was because he used too much of the medications, the difference is they are prescribed in those quantities all the time, and especailly within inpatient psychiatric units. We have people on maximum doses of 10-20 different antispychotics at the same time, and then they add in other drugs to stop the side effects. There is nothing at all strange about the amount of drugs in his system. Are they over recommended limits, yes, but we all know that 90% of people on these drugs are on over recommended limits.

    I know someone who has recently with being allocated a new psychiatrist been taken off 100 mg of Olazipine, the maximum recommended dose of 20 mg. She has been court ordered to take it for the last 5 years and it literally almost killed her. She could no longer walk, her eyes had shut down, the had heart, lung, kidney and liver problems, and they were literally shuttting down. When she became unwell the psychiatrist used to up the dose from the 100 mg. By pure luck she has been forced to see another psychiatrist and this one has shown some level of common sense and placed her on maximum recommended doses. She can now walk and see to some degree. Her body is no longer shutting down, and minor improvements have occured. When doctors can really prescribe these amounts of drugs then people can legally take them. I know of people who do believe in the med’s when they hear voices again and ring there case manager they are told to just take extra medication!! I’m willing to bet he was using these drugs largely as prescribed, but no one will admit to that.

    Report comment

  2. I agree with Belinda. There is a good chance he was not chugging pill bottles because he was out of his mind but instead may have been taking his “medication” as prescribed. The journalists covering this story should look into that and clear it up, but they probably wont. I was on as many as 11 different drugs when I was a kid, when I was only 10 and 11 years old, and most of them were beyond max dosages. I remember my daily dose of ativan was 6MG, I’m pretty sure that’s the 24 hour max FOR ADULTS. I remember I was on 3 times the max FDA recommended daily dose of Risperdal, and I was just 10 years old!

    Report comment

LEAVE A REPLY