Jesus Rincon Murietta: Is a Friend. 

Violent at times, an admitted murderer, and indeed someone who I simply could not "trust" to care for a pet, plant, and so on, Jesus Rincon Murietta is also a human being deeply affected by chronic serious mental illness. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and especially not to April Mott in  terms of her status today- an innocent young woman lost to the incompetence of state health officials- or to the Mott family, April's friends, and so on; and I have no intent of playing down the significance and horrific nature of Jesus' actions, either. The entire history underlying the lives of all victims associated with this tragedy is beyond my understanding, even today, and I further contend that Jesus in his own right has been gravely let down by the Arizona Department of Health, Behavioral Health Services, most specifically. In context, I also know something about him that most people can't, not beyond Jesus' family that is, and other like persons who have also been directly affected by this issue; or persons like myself, staff and patients alike, who were present- at ASH- when he did, in fact, violently escape into the hot Phoenix night. The ripple effect was very real in terms of patient community in those first few days, for we all shared knowledge of this young man's fragile mental state, most particularly in terms of his violent tendencies. 

My intimate knowledge of this matter includes the fact that:

If not for the grossly unlawful misconduct of highly authoritative staff persons at The Arizona State Hospital, who did as a matter of undeniable fact deny the public clear and uncensored knowledge about Murietta's having escaped ASH in late May, 2011, than April Mott would not have been murdered by Murietta- in fact- and Jesus himself would very likely not be rotting away in prison today. 

I have gone to great length in exposing details specific to the fact that the aforementioned misconduct of administrators at the Arizona State Hospital did directly contribute to April Mott's death. I have done so in order to expose how her death could have been avoided, with specific reference to the failure of ASH staff to meet their most fundamental obligations as a public mental heath care facility that just happens to function in the smack dab middle of an enormous city. For therein is a history clearly indicative of the critical need for immediate oversight and accountability. "Immediate" may seem more than a bit over the top, given the timeline of this matter as it stands today; but it does apply, given the attendant fact that each and every individual most directly responsible for the cycle of violence underlying this matter are still- today- working in highly important positions in the Arizona health care system, both at the ASH facility (Noriega, Rudd, Patel), or higher up the tree in the ADHS/BHS network (Dingle, Nelson); or, in the case of Jesus' primary attending psychiatrist (Steven O. Morris), now functioning in private practice in the greater Phoenix area. 

But I really need to speak on behalf of my friend Jesus Rincon Murietta today, for the second  anniversary of his formal 22 year prison sentence is approaching, and I highly doubt that this seriously mentally ill young man is faring well in that regard. It is common knowledge across the board, I feel, that the health care conditions in prisons today are not exactly up to par with standards that the rest of us take for granted; and more so, in terms of mental health care, for corrections facilities in themselves are known to be very, very traumatic to any person's state of mind. And Jesus today… I admit that I do not think or worry about this man on a daily basis. For from it, in fact. But his situation is not removed from my concerns today, for one simple reason:

Had he been identified as an escaped patient from ASH, at that time when ASH administrators were in the position of altering the public of this very real crisis, Jesus would not be in prison today. As a seriously mentally ill citizen of Arizona, Jesus was and is still deserving of reasonable mental health care, but due to the presence of trusted health care providers who we- the citizens of Arizona- cannot trust, in fact, yet one more at risk person is being denied reasonable care. It is that simple, it is as wrong as wrong it gets, and the whole of the matter is 100% unacceptable to me at this time. I am not alone in this concern, and do not need to be reminded, as it were. It is that bad.

I met Jesus Murietta in the summer of 2010, when the two of us were undergoing mental health treatment in now closed Tucson facility, at St. Joseph's Hospital, known as the "Extended Care Unit", or "ECU." I arrived there after him, and for the entirety of the four or so weeks that we were both there, Jesus was heavily medicated. He was medicated as such because his violent outbursts and related psychotic breaks were an ongoing thing, and the dosage was so strong, that much of the time it was all Jesus could do to walk, converse, and so on. And indeed, at times, he was liable to attack others, but it was always male staff that he would jump on. At no point did I ever feel threatened by Jesus there in the ECU facility, and I did in fact help break up at least one of these conflicts (Jesus referred to that incident later, when we were at ASH, and literally thanked me for my participation at the time). But there were other times during my coming to know Jesus in Tucson, too; times during which he was calm, personable- and although heavily drugged in this sense- was very able to carry on interesting and intelligent discourse. It was at these times that I came know, respect, and even appreciate Jesus Murietta as a peer and fellow human being, affected as we both are by serious mental illness. As an example, I am a piano player, and there was an electric piano of reasonable quality there at ECU, which I would play almost every day for some number of minutes into hours; and Jesus used to come sit and a listen to my playing on a regular basis. Now, I am not a deeply trained or otherwise skilled keyboardist, but Jesus would always ask me to play some Beethoven, Chopin, or Strauss, and every time I had to turn down this request on the simple basis that I am not that good of a musician, he would chuckle, and say something along the lines of "You are pretty good, Patrick. All you need to do is keep practicing, and you will be able play that stuff…."

In this regard, if no other, I do possess a very real fondness for this particular young man. As with all persons affected by serious mental illness, somewhere there in the mix of any human being's overall state of being lies a very real person, with any range of very positive  personality and behavioral characteristics. I have found this true in virtually all of my interactions with such persons, to date. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the worst of the worst staff at ASH, in my experience, a fact that deeply disturbed me throughout the entirety of my time at ASH. 

It is not the patients who I came to fear at ASH, if was staff. SOME staff. They are the problem.

Jesus Murietta is no different. I can only ask that anyone of character consider what it might be like to be an early 20-something year old man, who due to the constant affects of serious psychosis, has lost all ability to control his actions when experiencing psychotic breaks(wherein all touch with reality vanishes, bottom line), this in spite of being able to grasp the value of life, in all terms shared by those of us who value such things. Therein, those of us affected lose all contact to our lives, as they may have stood in terms of childhood, family, and so on. No one thing is more terrifying, in my experience, then coming to know that one's own mind and deeply connected sense of self has been enveloped by something that we cannot even touch, no matter how close it is to our life, as it occurs in our day to day activities. 

Trust me, reader, when I attest to the fact that I came to know a number of persons who share this nature of mental imbalance, and via my  reasonably in-depth relationships with such persons (as they arose between May, 2010, and February, 2012, which represents my full term of hospitalization, inc. before my ASH experiences), who I  further attest would far rather not be who they are, in this specific context. I am willing to further suggest that this is why Jesus Murietta attempted to kill himself, well prior to being subjected to the substandard mental health care at ASH. Why his primary attending physician, Dr. Steven O. Morris, and any/all associated staff at ASH failed to understand this young man's state of mind, I will never fully understand. Of this, I am certain. 


In the next year or so, 2011, when Jesus and I were hospitalized together at ASH- before his May, 2011, escape, that is- we maintained a friendly relationship, albeit not quite like the one we had in Tucson the previous year. For ASH is far larger than that ECU facility (which only had 12 beds, in total), and he and were not on the same treatment unit at ASH, along with other like dynamics to the matter. I would see him daily at ASH, out on the "grounds", also known as "the patient mall", and it was always easy enough to continue our friendship, albeit on limited terms. It need be said, too, that Jesus is at least 20 years younger than me, and at ASH he was able to interact with many patients closer to his age (as was I). He was also off all pyscho-tropic medications, to my knowledge (as reported by ASH staff), by the time he escaped ASH, and suffice it to day, Jesus was far more upbeat than he had been when heavily medicated. He was also clearly dangerous. 

It is in that atmosphere that I last saw Jesus, when he was properly situated in a mental health facility assigned the responsibility of seeing that he, and anyone else, would be protected from the worst affects of his illness, as it stood at that time. And I do in fact recall the last time we spoke, in an outdoor area adjacent to the patient gymnasium, on an already searingly hot May afternoon in central Phoenix, Arizona.

At about 8:30 a.m. on the morning after the escape itself, an ASH patient named Albert shared the news about Jesus Rincon Murietta's escape from The Arizona State Hospital  (which occurred at about 9:30 p.m. the previous evening, late May, 2011). I recall that conversation well, sitting on a concrete bench of sorts, waiting for the patient library open. When Albert informed me, as such, and in part due to the way he described the incident, it was somewhat of a cool story to hear, at least to the extent that my friend had successfully staved off the allegedly secure setting at ASH. But the novelty of this news wore off pretty quickly, as my consideration of the matter broadened that morning. As I have stated in prior articles, I had three very specific concerns, described as follows:

      1) I had immediate concern for Murietta's safety, for along with his known violent behavioral characteristics towards others, he also has a very real history of lethal suicide attempts, which are readily evident in the form of deep scar tissue directly across his throat and both of his wrists.

      2) Given Murietta's established behavioral characteristics specific to violence directed towards other, which I had witnessed in a Tucson area mental facility prior to ASH, as well as at ASH itself in the months before the escape, I had immediate concern for the deep and very real threat posed to the general public, in the greater Phoenix area, and beyond. 

     3) Within 48 or so hours of the escape, I learned that ASH administrators had failed to meet this most basic of obligations to the public, and therein I sensed the presence of a very real cover up, which I knew to be 100% against the law. I sensed, as such, that these people were intending to avoid the required oversight that applies to such events (escape(s) of violent patients, etc.), which compelled me to contact the editorial staff of the Arizona Republic newspaper on the the 3rd day after the escape.

AS A MATTER OF NEED, RESPECT, AND HEARTFELT CONCERN, I AGAIN STATE THAT I AM NOT OUT TO DENY THE BRUTALITY AND ABJECT TRAGEDY UNDERLYING THE DEATH OF APRIL MOTT. I CAN ONLY HOPE THAT HER LOVED ONES DO NOT, IN FACT, RESENT MY SENTIMENTS AS THEY RELATE TO THIS MATTER, IN GENERAL. THAT IS A RISK I TAKE, HOWEVER, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, I ALSO HOPE THAT HER LOVED ONES HAVE FOUND SOME SEMBLANCE OF RELATIVE PEACE. IT IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS, IN FACT, BUT IT IS STILL SOMETHING I FEEL, IN MY HEART. WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, AND AT THE END OF THE DAY, WE ALL EQUALY MATTER IN THE EYES OF GOD.

IN CLOSING: This is about all I can say about this issue, in any context. The whole thing is ugly to its core, and I abhor the need to keep returning to it. But until the one's most directly responsible for the underlying factual history are held accountable under law, I will continue to speak of it. On a related note, in the near future I will be in Phoenix, on occasion, most likely on business, as the efforts to address the deplorably substandard conditions at The Arizona State Hospital continue to evolve. I will visit Tucson, too, for I have many friends there; and perhaps Flagstaff, and so on. And at some point in time I do intend to request a visit with Jesus Rincon Murietta, in whichever of the Arizona corrections facilities he may happen to be in. This, presuming he has not been transferred for whatever reason out of Arizona. In any case, it is my hope to merely visit the man, and do what I can to support his personal sense of humanity, if that should in any way be possible. Prison is a terrible place for anyone to reside, although I also do believe that some people deserve to be there. In my past life as a scholarship supported law student at the University of Arizona, circa 2001-2003, I participated in a clinical activity specific to the Arizona Justice Project,(which is dedicated to serving the needs of persons sentenced and incarcerated in relation to capital offenses), and I in that vein, I did visit Arizona's major corrections facility, in Florence, AZ, on several occasions- the Eyeman complex, in fact- "death row". So it will not be entirely outside my range of experiences to visit Jesus, as such. I become acquainted with his assigned attorney during that period time that Jesus was being prosecuted for the murder of April Mott, it was I in fact, who alerted the woman to the underlying history about Jesus situation, as it had played out over the previous few months; and she has encouraged me to contact her anytime I am ready to try and visit Jesus.  

paoloreed@gmail.com