Topic: Mom Tries To Rid Son Of Demons By Slitting Throat, Then Stomping Chest

[jomike]

Poor woman was doing it wrong!  See, you're supposed to take the kid out into the wilderness and stretch him out on a big rock and draw the knife waaay up in the air and plunge it down...  and then GOD SPEAKS TO YOU and tells you not to actually kill the kid, see?  That way you get found a world religion and be on Oprah and stuff.

[David E.]

Poor woman was doing it wrong!  See, you're supposed to take the kid out into the wilderness and stretch him out on a big rock and draw the knife waaay up in the air and plunge it down...  and then GOD SPEAKS TO YOU and tells you not to actually kill the kid, see?  That way you get found a world religion and be on Oprah and stuff.

Three World Religions.

[daemonowner]

Are people really supporting the 'oh, those crazy people are just drawn to the church' style arguments?

[Desert Fox]

I would like to see if there are any good case studies of people who are not religious who had similar break downs?

[H. Drummond]

I would like to see if there are any good case studies of people who are not religious who had similar break downs?

That is an interesting question, though I think finding them would be sort of a chicken-egg problem.  If someone is not particularly religious, but due to mental illness onset experiences visions, voices or other seemingly supernatural phenomena, they might well become religious to explain what is going on.  I am guessing that a person seeing visions or hearing voices would be more likely to think it is something external e.g. God is talking to me, or demons are stalking me, than internal, e.g. this is a product of my brain not working right.   

But maybe the people who weren't or aren't religious are the ones who think that aliens or the CIA are talking to them and sending them signals rather than God.  I wonder how many of those people are violent as well as delusional?

[arthwollipot]

This is mental illness through and through. The form was Christian but really, an atheist would have done something equally horrible, just with another framing.

I wonder about that.

An atheist wouldn't have done it to try and drive out demons, but if they were insane enough they'd do it for some other reason.

[Desert Fox]

But maybe the people who weren't or aren't religious are the ones who think that aliens or the CIA are talking to them and sending them signals rather than God.  I wonder how many of those people are violent as well as delusional?

The only one I can think of is Diana Dial

Dangerous Mind (Court TV)

Diana Dial, a mother and librarian, was being stalked by President Clinton and former Senator George Mitchell. She was the heiress to the Howard Hughes fortune, and conducted intelligence work for the CIA…or so she believed. Dial has paranoid schizophrenia, an illness that eventually drove her to kill her roommate whom she believed had poisoned her--and was going to poison the rest of her family.

When she went on trial for murder, Dial faced Texas' strict laws regarding the insanity defense, which has been modified in l983 in response to the John Hinkely defense. Lawyers had to prove that Dial could not distinguish between right and wrong at the time of the shooting; a much more difficult standard than in the past.

In an exclusive interview, "The System" speaks directly with this unlikely killer, and explores her dark world of assassins, conspiracies and deadly substances.

The show described how Diana Gallow, a mother and wife, walked out on her family, changed her last name to Dial (at the orders of the CIA whom she claimed to be an agent for) and wandered from Phoenix, Arizona, to Montana, to Maine and other places to escape the German Nazis who wanted to kill her - blaming her for their losing World War II.

The show details what happens when a schizophrenic goes untreated and refuses to take medication for the illness. Other Diana Dial's actions included:

(1) Calling police constantly, sometimes 6-8 times a day, to complain someone trying to kill her, noises outside her house and on her roof of killers trying to get to her.

(2) Going to her kid's school and making sure her young children were constantly shaking the wrist bracelets with bells on them to ward off evil Nazis who were trying to kidnap her children.

(3) Writing hundreds of letters a week to state and federal officials over the many Nazi and CIA (whom she also claimed to work for)conspiracies against her.

(4) Was fired from her library job in Maine, after attacking a co-worker whom she claimed had chased her around the library on a daily basis with an ice-pick chopping at the tip of her ear.

(5) Experienced hypergraphia - excessive need to write letters.

(6) Claimed the landlord she murdered to be poisoning her with drinks containing gold.

In her murder trial, it was revealed that Dial was a very intelligent woman who excelled in a college Masters Degree program in Library Science, and that despite being seriously mentally ill, she was capable of deciphering between right and wrong.

Like Barbara Schwarz, Dial believed that she was totally sane and anyone that didn't agree with her was crazy and part of a global conspiracy against her.

Like Barbara Schwarz, Dial ranted that the psychiatrists that tried to help her, were lunatics, child killers, devil worshippers, and not real doctors.

Like Barbara Schwarz, Dial had no friends and her family turned away from her. In her trial, her distraught mother testified how she vainly tried to get her daughter to seek help only to be attacked and denigrated by her daughter for conspiring against her. She compared the situation to an incident where Dial, as a teenager, broke her arm. Showing her an X-ray of a broken arm was one thing, but how do you show your daughter she has a a broken mind?

Psychiatrist Xavier Amador testified that mental illness is no excuse for willfully breaking the law and killing people.

Diane Dial was found guilty of 1st Degree Murder and sentenced to 60 years to life in prison. Dial said she has found prison life comfortable. Her prison guards are nice and she has not been threatened or terrorized by the Germans or government agents. She feels safe.

Asked if she had any remorse for killing her landlord, she said, "No". She knew it was wrong, that she'd probably go to prison for doing it and probably be executed for the crime, but she felt she had to do it, so she did.

Want to show that even she seemed to have something religious thrown it.

[Guillermo]

(6) Claimed the landlord she murdered to be poisoning her with drinks containing gold.

She totally saw that on Dr. House!

[Desert Fox]

(6) Claimed the landlord she murdered to be poisoning her with drinks containing gold.

She totally saw that on Dr. House!

Pretty sure it is the reverse