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A Brief History of Psychotropic Drugs Prescribed to Mass Murderers

on January 16, 2013 - 11:37am

A Brief History of Psychotropic Drugs Prescribed to Mass Murderers
By Daren Savage

Then-Senator Joe Biden noted during the Democratic primary debate on Apr. 26, 2007, “We have let the country down in the way in which we have not focused on mental illness,” Biden said. “We should know that when you send a kid to college, you're going to be safe on college.”

“My wife is a doctor of education, a teacher at a community college,” Biden said. “If, in fact, she and other teachers determine that a child - by the way they're writing and what they're acting - that they're a danger, the school should be able to take them off the campus.”

This debate took place 10 days after Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 and wounded 17 others at Virginia Tech. Biden also admitted at this debate to owning guns for skeet shooting.

Recently, I took part in the Active Shooter Exercise at the Pueblo Complex conducted by LANL. The exercise itself was very valuable and I feel very lucky to have been allowed to participate in it.

During the debriefing, one of the participants stated that most of the mass shootings that have taken place were the result of domestic disputes, workplace anger or other issues and only a few were the result of mental illness or drugs.

This caused me to wonder how many of the reported mass shootings really were the result of issues other than mental illness or drugs. The more I researched this question, the more surprising the results became.

It should be noted that most of the users of psychotropic drugs do not have the potential to be mass murderers; yet all of the mass murderers listed here had been prescribed one or more psychotropic drug. However, the number of people who could potentially experience one or more adverse side effects was shocking!

As noted later, in some cases only one in 1,000 people experience adverseside effects, but if the drug were prescribed to 19 million people, literally thousands of people could experience adverse side effects.

What follows is the result of my research and question, “What psychotropic drugs where prescribed to mass murders?” At the end of this article is a list of the drugs prescribed and their most serious adverse side effects.

John Hinckley (1981) John Hinckley, age 25, took four Valium two hours before shooting and almost killing President Ronald Reagan in 1981. In the assassination attempt, Hinckley also wounded press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and policeman Thomas Delahanty.

Laurie Dann (1988) In 1988, 31-year-old Laurie Dann went on a shooting rampage in a second-grade classroom in Winnetka, IL, killing one child and wounding six. She had been taking the anti-depressant Anafranil as well as Lithium, long used to treat mania.

Patrick Purdy (1989) Patrick Purdy went on a schoolyard shooting rampage in Stockton, CA, in 1989, which became the catalyst for the original legislative frenzy to ban "semiautomatic assault weapons" in California and the nation. The 25-year-old Purdy, who murdered five children and wounded 30, had been on Amitriptvine, an anti-depressant, as well as the antipsychotic drug Thorazine.

Joseph T. Wesbecker (1989) In another famous case, 47-year-old Joseph T. Wesbecker, just a month after he began taking Prozac in 1989, shot 20 workers at Standard Gravure Corp. in Louisville, Ky., killing nine. Prozac maker Eli Lilly later settled a lawsuit brought by survivors.

Kurt Danysh (1996) Kurt Danysh, 18, shot his own father to death in 1996, a little more than two weeks after starting on Prozac. Danvsh's description of own his mental-emotional state at the time of the murder is chilling: "I didn't realize I did it until after it was done." Danysh said. "This might sound weird, but it felt like I had no control of what I was doing, like I was left there just holding a gun."

Michael Carneal (1997) In Paducah, KY, in late 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal, son of a prominent attorney, traveled to Heath High School and started shooting students in a prayer meeting taking place in the school's lobby, killing three and leaving another paralyzed. Carneal reportedly was on Ritalin.


Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (1999) Columbine mass-killer Eric Harris was taking Luvox. Like Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor and many others, a modern and widely prescribed type of anti-depressant drug called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs. Harris and fellow student Dylan Klebold went on a hellish school shooting rampage in 1999, during which they killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 24 others before turning their guns on themselves. Luvox manufacturer Solvav Pharmaceuticals concedes that during short-term controlled clinical trials, 4 percent of children and youth taking Luvox - that's one in 25 - developed mania, a dangerous and violence-prone mental derangement characterized by extreme excitement and delusion.

Larry Gene Ashbrook (1999) On Sept. 15, 1999, Larry Gene Ashbrook murdered seven people and injured a further seven at a concert by Christian Rock group Forty Days at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. Ashbrook then committed suicide. A doctor had prescribed the anti-depressant drug Prozac for Larry Gene Ashbrook, but investigators are unsure whether he was taking it when he killed seven people and then himself in a Fort Worth church last week, police said on Monday. Fort Worth's Lt. Mark Krey, who is heading the investigation into the largest mass shooting in the city's history, said police have found a Prozac vial in Ashbrook's name and want to ask doctors why it was prescribed.

Michael McDermott (2000) The hulking computer technician accused of gunning down seven of his co-workers at a Wakefield high tech firm this week suffered from a host of mental illnesses - including schizophrenia - for which he was taking a trio of anti-depressants, a source told the Herald yesterday. "He's got some serious psychological issues and a long (psychiatric) history," the source said of 42-year-old Michael "Mucko" McDermott. McDermott, a divorced Navy veteran from Marshfield who lived most recently in Haverhill, suffered from severe depression, paranoia and schizophrenia, and had been in psychiatric treatment for some time, according to the source who spoke on condition of anonymity. To cope with his mental disorders, McDermott was prescribed several Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs are designed to increase brain serotonin. Low levels of brain serotonin can lead to depression and anxiety disorders.

Christopher Pittman (2001) 12-year-old Christopher Pittman struggled in court to explain why he murdered his grandparents, who had provided the only love and stability he'd ever known in his turbulent life. "When I was lying in my bed that night,' he testified, "I couldn't sleep because my voice in my head kept echoing through my mind telling me to kill them." Christopher had been angry with his grandfather, who had disciplined him earlier that day for hurting another student during a fight on the school bus. So later that night, he shot both of his grandparents in the head with a .410 shotgun as they slept and then burned down their South Carolina home, where he had lived with them. "I got up, got the gun, and I went upstairs and I pulled the trigger," he recalled. "Through the whole thing, it was like watching your favorite TV show. You know what is going to happen, but you can't do anything to stop it." Pittman's lawyers would later argue that the boy had been a victim of "involuntary intoxication" since his doctors had him taking the antidepressants Paxil and Zoloft just prior to the murders. Paxil's known adverse drug reactions according to the drug's FDA approved label include mania, insomnia, anxiety, agitation, confusion, amnesia, depression, paranoid reaction, psychosis, hostility, delirium, hallucinations, abnormal thinking, depersonalization and lack of emotion, among others.

Andrea Yates (2001) Andrea Yates, in one of the most heartrending crimes in modern history, drowned all five of her children - aged 7 years down to 6 months - in a bathtub. Insisting inner voices commanded her to kill her children. She had become increasingly psychotic over the course of several years. At her 2006 murder re-trial (after a 2002 guilty verdict was overturned on appeal), Yates' longtime friend Debbie Holmes testified: "She asked me if I thought Satan could read her mind and if I believed in demon possession?” And Dr. George Ringhoiz, after evaluating Yates for two days, recounted an experience she had after the birth of her first child: ''What she described was feeling a presence ... Satan ... telling her to take a knife and stab her son Noah," Ringhoiz said, adding that Yates' delusion at the time of the bathtub murders was not only that she had to kill her children to save them, but that Satan had entered her and that she had to be executed in order to kill Satan. Yates had been taking the anti-depressant Effexor.

In November 2005, more than four years after Yates drowned her children, Effexor manufacturer Wyeth Pharmaceuticals quietly added "homicidal ideation" to the drug's list of "rare adverse events." The Medical Accountability Network, a private nonprofit focused on medical ethics issues, publicly criticized Wyeth, saying Effexor's "homicidal ideation" risk wasn't well-publicized and that Wyeth failed to send letters to doctors or issue warning labels announcing the change. And what exactly does "rare" mean in the phrase "rare adverse events?" The FDA defines it as occurring in less than one in 1.000 people. But since that same year 19.2 million prescriptions for Effexor were filled in the U.S., statistically that means thousands of Americans might experience "homicidal ideation" - murderous thoughts -as a result of taking just this one brand of anti-depressant drug. Effexor is Wyeth's best-selling drug, by the way, which in one recent year brought in over $3 billion in sales, accounting for almost a fifth of the company's annual revenues.

Jeff Weise (2005) In 2005, 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise, living on Minnesota's Red Lake Indian Reservation, shot and killed nine people and wounded five others before killing himself. Weise had been taking Prozac.

Terry Michael Ratzmann (2005) Terry Michael Ratzmann killed seven members of the Living Church of God (LCG) before committing suicide at a Sheraton Hotel in Brookfield, WI in 2005. On the verge of losing his job as a computer technician with a placement firm, Ratzmann was known to suffer from bouts of depression, and was reportedly infuriated by a sermon the minister had given two weeks earlier. Ratzmann's autopsy revealed that he was suffering from Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Hashimoto's thyroiditis very often results in hypothyroidism with bouts of hyperthyroidism. Symptoms of Hashimoto's thyroiditis include Myxedematous psychosis, weight gain, depression, mania, sensitivity to heat and cold, paresthesia, fatigue, panic attacks, bradycardia, tachycardia, high cholesterol, reactive hypoglycemia, constipation, migraines, muscle weakness, cramps, memory loss, infertility and hair loss.

Seung-Hui Cho (2007) Seung-Hui Cho was a Korean spree killer who killed 32 people and wounded 17 others on April 16, 2007, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. He was a senior-level undergraduate student at the university. The shooting rampage came to be known as the "Virginia Tech massacre." Cho later committed suicide after law enforcement officers breached the doors of the building where the majority of the shooting had taken place. His body is buried in Fairfax, Va., In middle school, he was diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder known as Selective Mutism, as well as major depressive disorder. After this diagnosis he began receiving treatment and continued to receive therapy and special education support until his junior year of high school. During Cho's last two years at Virginia Tech, several instances of his abnormal behavior, as well as plays and other writings he submitted containing references to violence, caused concern among teachers and classmates. In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine convened a panel consisting of various officials and experts to investigate and examine the response and handling of issues related to the shootings. The panel released its final report in August 2007, devoting more than 30 pages to detailing Cho's troubled history. In the report, the panel criticized the failure of the educators and mental health professionals who came into contact with Cho during his college years to notice his deteriorating condition and help him. Like the perpetrators of both the Columbine and Jokela school massacres, Cho was prescribed the anti-depressant drug Prozac prior to his rampage, a substance suspected by Peter Breggin and David Healy of leading to suicidal behaviors.

Robert Hawkins (2007) Robert Hawkins also had problems controlling his temper, as outcast-types with no anchor tying them to the rest of society sometimes do. Robert Hawkins had a prescription for and was taking anti-depressants. Maribel Rodriguez said her son's life had been a challenge from the start. She divorced Hawkins' father when the boy was 3-years-old, she said, and by 5 he was taking prescription Ritalin and Zoloft. He became a ward of the state in 2002 after apparently threatening his stepmother. He was moved through facilities and foster homes for several years, until he was released in 2005. Two weeks before the shooting rampage, Hawkins parted ways with his girlfriend. Hawkins killed eight people before turning a gun on himself and committing suicide.

Steven Kazmierczak (2008) Steven Kazmierczak, 27, opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University, killing six and wounding 21. The gunman shot and killed himself before police arrived. Jessica Baty said that her boyfriend of two years had been taking Xanax, used to treat anxiety and Ambien, a sleep agent, as well as the anti-depressant Prozac. Baty said the psychiatrist prescribed the medications, a fact that made her so "nervous" that she tried to persuade Kazmierczak to stop taking one of the drugs. She said he had stopped taking the anti-depressant three weeks before the Valentine's Day rampage on the NIU campus in DeKalb, Illinois, which left five students dead and 16 wounded. He then killed himself. Kazmierczak told her he had stopped taking the anti-depressant "because it made him feel like a zombie," she said during the interview Sunday at her parents' house in Wonder Lake, Il. "He wasn't acting erratic. He was just a little quicker to get annoyed." Kazmierczak had a history of mental illness and revered figures like Adolf Hitler and Ted Bundy. Steven Kazmierczak even wore a tattoo depicting Jigsaw, the Saw films' sadistic narrator, and had a history of attempted suicide. NIU police say they never got wind of such warnings. "How could it be a red flag if it never came to us?" said the university's police chief. But David Vann, who culled the information on Kazmierczak for a book about the shootings said the writing was on the wall. Kazmierczak had been hospitalized several times for mental illness and was known as "Strange Steve" by roommates. "What does a mass murderer have to do to get noticed?" asked Vann.

Robert Stewart (2009) Eight people died in a shooting at the Pinelake Health and Rehab nursing home in Carthage, NC. The gunman, 45-year-old Robert Stewart, was targeting his estranged wife who worked at the home and survived. Stewart was sentenced to life in prison. Richard Wagner, a toxicologist with the State Bureau of Investigations, testified that blood samples taken from Robert Stewart hours after the shooting show he had several prescription drugs in his system. Wagner told jurors Stewart was reported to have the antidepressant Lexipro, sleep-aid Ambien, Benadryl, and possibly Xanax in his blood system on March 29, 2009. Wagner said he was unable to determine the amount of each drug that was found in Stewart's blood stream because the time these drugs can stay in a person's system can vary.

Jared Loughner (2011) Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot in the head when 22-year-old Jared Loughner opened fire on an event she was holding at a Safeway market in Tucson, AZ. Six people died, including Arizona District Court Chief Judge John Roll, one of Giffords' staffers, and a 9-year-old girl. 19 people were shot. Loughner has been sentenced to seven life terms plus 140 years, without parole. Loughner's plea spares him the death penalty and came soon after a federal judge found that months of forcibly medicating him to treat his schizophrenia had made the 23-year-old college dropout competent to understand the gravity of the charges and assist in his defense.

Eduardo Sencion (2011) Eduardo Sencion entered an IHOP restaurant in Carson City, Nev., and shot 12 people. Five died, including three National Guard members. According to CBS affiliate KTVN, the shooter's motive was unclear, but family members said he had mental issues. He had never been in the military and had no known affiliation with anyone inside the restaurant. Investigators said his family first became aware of mental health issues when Sencion complained about being harassed by co-workers. He sought treatment when his employer told the family he was becoming increasing paranoid. Family members said Sencion took his medication, and all but one of his mental health commitments were voluntary. The report did not say how many times Sencion was hospitalized. But Sencion told his family he avoided intimate relationships because he feared "he would father a child and pass along his illness." He immersed himself in the Bible, and gave his mother keys to his gun safe, warning her he was "getting sick."He thought people were demons trying to hurt him, and began hearing voices telling him to do "bad things" to people. Sencion's medications were changed this summer. About a month later, he approached a priest in the street and asked him for help, telling the priest, "They're telling me to do bad things." The night before the shootings, Sencion, who lived with family members, took his medication at 10 p.m. Everything appeared normal the next morning. His last comment to his family was, "I should have gone to work today."

Scott Evans Dekraai (2012) Eight people died in a shooting at Salon Meritage hair salon in Seal Beach, Calif. The gunman, 41-year-old Scott Evans Dekraai, killed six women and two men dead, while just one woman survived. It was Orange County's deadliest mass killing. At Dekraai's Oct. 14 arraignment hearing, which at the request of defense attorney Robert Curtis was continued to Nov. 29 so he would have more time to prepare, the lawyer asked Judge Erick L. Larsh to order jail officials to give his client a prescribed anti-psychotic medicine and access to a "spinal cord stimulator" he has needed since his 2007 boat accident. Larsh instead ordered a medical evaluation of Dekraai to see what medicine he might need, leaving it up to the Orange County Sheriff's Department jailers to decide what was appropriate.

Thomas "TJ" Lane (2012) Three students were killed by Thomas "TJ" Lane, another student, in a rampage at Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio. Three others were injured. In hindsight, it is also easy to see how violence was part of his family. During his infancy, his parents Thomas Lane Jr. and Sara Nolan were reportedly each charged with domestic abuse against each other. Later arrest charges for Thomas Lane Jr. include assaulting a police officer, domestic abuse against another woman who fathered his children and attempted murder. The attempted-murder charge was dropped, but in 2002-03 he served eight months of a four-year sentence for strangling a woman until she lost consciousness, holding her face under running water and bashing her head against a wall. By the time TJ Lane was in elementary school, he was living with his maternal grandparents, Jack and Carol Nolan, who had also taken in his older brother Adam Nolan and a sister. But violence followed him there too. Records indicate that police arrested Adam, 19, multiple times for disorderly conduct, theft and other crimes related to his abuse of prescription drugs and heroin, including several overdoses. (Adam apparently was released into the custody of his grandparents who reportedly said they would try to get him treatment.) On Dec. 9, 2009, during his parents' divorce proceedings, Lane and Nolan, then 15 and 16, were arrested for assault, after getting into a fight with an uncle who had gone to the house.

Ian Stawicki (2012) Ian Stawicki opened fire on Cafe Racer Espresso in Seattle, Wash., killing five and himself after a citywide manhunt. The father of the sole surviving victim, the cafe's chef, told Reuters that police detectives had said the gunman was known to have had "psychiatric problems" and caused a disturbance at the coffee house a few days earlier. The sole surviving victim was identified as Leonard Meuse, 46, the cafe chef, who was hit by at least one bullet that pierced a lung, grazed his liver and a kidney but missed his heart, his father, Raymond Meuse, told Reuters. The gunman, he said, "was a person who has psychiatric problems and had been disruptive there (at the cafe) a few days earlier, detectives told me."

James Holmes (2012) During the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colo., 24-year-old James Holmes killed 12 people and wounded 58. Holmes was arrested outside the theater. The Denver Post reported Jan. 7 that, according to newly released court papers, police removed a number of prescription medication bottles - four, to be exact - from Holmes' apartment shortly after clearing it of explosives in the days following the July 20 shootings. They also seized immunization records. "The disclosures come in a back-and-forth between prosecutors and defense attorneys over whether those items should be subject to doctor-patient confidentiality. The judge ultimately ruled in October that prosecutors could keep the items," the paper said, adding that the names of the medications had been redacted from court documents. This shouldn't come as a huge surprise to anyone who's been following the correlation between these dangerous psychotropic drugs and mass murder. After all, earlier reports confirmed that Holmes was indeed being seen by a psychiatrist [], so there's a better-than-average chance that he, too was on one of these dangerous medications. With a fix for "altering his state of mind," the 'Batman shooter' was heavily hooked on the prescription painkiller Vicodin. Holmes even reportedly dosed up on a pharmaceutical cocktail just before the shooting. Side effects of Vicodin use, even at 'recommended' levels which Holmes likely far exceeded, include 'altered mental states' and 'unusual thoughts or behavior.'

Andrew Engeldinger (2012) Five were shot to death by 36-year-old Andrew Engeldinger at Accent Signage Systems in Minneapolis, Minn. Three others were wounded. Engeldinger went on a rampage after losing his job, ultimately killing himself. A police search of the home of Accent Signage Systems shooter Andrew Engeldinger found medications commonly prescribed for depression and insomnia, according to a Minneapolis Police Department report. Police found prescription bottles for two anti-depressant medications. Mirtazapine and Trazodone, and for Temazepam, a medication used to treat insomnia, in Engeldinger's home. They also found many empty prescription bottles, including 18 empty prescription bottles for a generic form of the anti-depressant drug Wellbutrin. According to the police report, all of the prescriptions bottles bore Engeldinger's name.

Adam Lanza (2012) On Friday morning, 27 people were reportedly shot and killed at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn. According to sources, 18 of these casualties were children. New York Magazine wrote a piece about shooter Adam Lanza's supposed "aspergers" syndrome. Inside the piece though, they report Adam Lanza's uncle said the boy was prescribed Fanapt, a controversial anti-psychotic medicine.

In fact, Fanapt was dropped by its first producer, picked up by another, initially rejected by the FDA, then later picked up and mass produced. The adverse side-effect is said to be "infrequent," but still it exists, and can't be ignored. The reaction invoked by the drug in some people is reminiscent of the Jeffrey R. MacDonald case, where a Green Beret slaughtered his entire family and then fabricated a story about a marauding troop of "hopped up hippies." MacDonald though, had Eskatrol in his system, a weight-loss amphetamine that's since been banned in part for its side effects of psychotic behavior and aggression.

These drugs are not the only ones that can cause the opposite of their desired effect. Several anti-depressant medications are also restricted to adults, for the depression they inspire in kids rather than eliminate.

Ambien: depression, anxiety, aggression, agitation, confusion, unusual thoughts, hallucinations, memory problems, changes in personality, risk-taking behavior, decreased inhibitions, no fear of danger, or thoughts of suicide or hurting yourself; daytime drowsiness, dizziness, weakness, feeling "drugged" or light-headed.

Amitriptvine: You may have thoughts about suicide while taking an anti-depressant, especially if you are younger than 24 years old. Tell your doctor if you have worsening depression or suicidal thoughts during the first several weeks of treatment, or whenever your dose is changed.


Fanapt: restlessness, aggression, and delusion have been reported frequently. Hostility, decreased libido, paranoia, anorgasmia, confusional state, mania, catatonia, mood swings. panic attack, obsessive compulsive disorder, bulimia nervosa, delirium, polydipsia psychogenic, impulse-control disorder, and major depression have been reported infrequently.


Lithium: hallucinations, seizure (blackout or convulsions.)



Paxil: mood or behavior changes, anxiety, panic attacks, trouble sleeping, or if you feel impulsive, irritable, agitated, hostile, aggressive, restless, hyperactive (mentally or physically), more depressed, or have thoughts about  suicide or hurting yourself, agitation, hallucinations, fever, fast heart rate, overactive reflexes, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, feeling unsteady, loss of coordination, fainting, headache, trouble concentrating, memory problems, weakness, confusion, hallucinations, fainting, seizure, shallow breathing or breathing that stops.


Ritalin: aggression, restlessness, hallucinations, unusual behavior, or motor tics (muscle twitches); dangerously high blood pressure (severe headache, blurred vision, buzzing in your ears, anxiety, confusion, chest pain, shortness of breath, uneven heartbeats, seizure.)

Thorazine: unusual thoughts or behavior; feeling restless, jittery, or agitated.

Trazodone: mood or behavior changes, anxiety, panic attacks, trouble sleeping, or if you feel impulsive, irritable, agitated, hostile, aggressive, restless, hyperactive (mentally or physically), more depressed, or have thoughts about suicide or hurting yourself; extreme mood swings, restlessness, or sleep problems; agitation, hallucinations, fast heart rate, overactive reflexes, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of coordination.

Temazepam: confusion, slurred speech, unusual thoughts or behavior; hallucinations, agitation, aggression; thoughts of suicide or hurting yourself.

Valium: (diazepam): confusion, hallucinations, unusual thoughts or behavior; unusual risk-taking behavior, decreased inhibitions, no fear of danger; depressed mood, thoughts of suicide or hurting yourself; hyperactivity, agitation, aggression, hostility.

Venlafaxine: (the active ingredient contained in Effexor): agitation, hallucinations, fever, fast heart rate, overactive reflexes, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of coordination.



Xanax: depressed mood, thoughts of suicide or hurting yourself, unusual risk-taking behavior, decreased inhibitions, no fear of danger; confusion, hyperactivity, agitation, hostility, hallucinations.
