Doctors sometimes differ on a diagnosis just as they also sometimes agree, a spokeswoman for the State Hospital said Tuesday about conflicting findings on the sanity of a man accused of fatally stabbing his mother and stepfather last week.
Amy Webb, communications director for the Department of Human Services, which runs the State Hospital, emphasized department employees are prohibited by the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act from talking about individual patients treated or examined at the facility.
Legal lingo
Incompetency
The term incompetency has several meanings in the law. When it is used to describe the mental condition of a person subject to legal proceedings, it means the person is neither able to comprehend the nature and consequences of the proceedings nor adequately able to help an attorney with his defense.
Source: Staff reports
Webb's comments were in response to questions about Dustin Price, 28, of Springdale. Price is accused of fatally stabbing Theresa and Jim Hendershot early Friday and injuring another person. He faces preliminary charges of capital murder, first-degree battery, third-degree assault and burglary. He is being held at the Washington County Detention Center with no bond set.
Court records show Price has undergone numerous court-ordered mental exams resulting in widely differing opinions as to his competency.
"Do doctors often have a difference of opinion? I'm sure they do," Webb said. "Do doctors often agree with each other on a diagnosis? Absolutely."
A doctor at the State Hospital in 2012 diagnosed Price with schizoaffective disorder. Schizoaffective disorder shows itself as a combination of typical schizophrenia symptoms, such as seeing or hearing things that aren't real, with a mood disorder such as depression or manic behavior, according to the Mayo Clinic and the National Alliance on Mental Health.
Doctors at Ozark Guidance who treated him from 2010 to 2012 diagnosed Price with bi-polar disorder as did doctors at the State Hospital in 2008.
But, during three subsequent stays at the State Hospital between 2010 and 2013, doctors said Price showed no symptoms of psychosis, even when tapered off his medication.
Dr. Brian Simpson, section chief of forensic services at the State Hospital found in May that Price showed no signs of psychosis during his monthlong stay there. Price was released from the hospital in June, court records show.
"Mr. Price does not suffer from a major mental illness. His primary issue is substance abuse," Simpson said in a May 26 report. "Given the above, it is my professional opinion he does not require further inpatient treatment and should be unconditionally released."
Webb said that, generally, if a person is arrested for a crime and found to be not guilty because of mental disease or defect, they go to the State Hospital for treatment. Doctors there assess him to determine what the mental illness is and then treat accordingly.
"People could stay at the State Hospital for years, they could be released under supervision or they could be released because it's determined they did not have a mental illness that required treatment," Webb said. "There's a broad array of things that can happen, but it's all individualized, based on individual situations and mental health."
Webb said it's important to remember the State Hospital is a treatment facility.
"We're not a prison, and we're not a punishment," she said. "The State Hospital is designed to treat people, and when they are able to go back into the community, then they do."
Springdale police say Price broke into his mother's home at 2306 Sandy St. about 2:30 a.m. Friday. Police went to the home after Price's mother called 911 and said her son had stabbed her husband. They found the Hendershots on the floor, unresponsive with stab wounds and blunt force trauma injuries, according to reports.
Price's criminal history includes arrests for assault, battery and threatening dating back to 2007, court documents show. He also has been committed in the Arkansas State Hospital five times since 2007.
Price didn't report to his probation officer after being released from the State Hospital in June, which prompted a Benton County Circuit judge to issue an arrest warrant Aug. 11. The probation dates back to a 2012 conviction on drug charges resulting in a 10-year suspended sentence.
Benton County Prosecutor Nathan Smith said Tuesday the priority of serving warrants is generally up to the Sheriff's Office.
"They are the agency that serves them, so I really couldn't comment on how they prioritize them," Smith said in the email. "Mr. Price did not have an obligation to report to Benton County upon his release, unless a judge in Pulaski County ordered something I'm not aware of as part of his release from mental health supervision."
A call and email to the Sheriff's Office public information officer weren't returned Tuesday.
After stabbing his parents, Price went to his home at a boarding house at 902 Caudle Ave., where he stabbed 52-year-old Daniel Teyhen, police say.
Teyhen said Tuesday he's recovering from stab wounds to his shoulder and arm. He said Price attacked him with a small machete-like knife about 18 inches long.
"I should be dead," Teyhen said.
Teyhen said Price was in the kitchen at the rooming house, and when Teyhen came from his room into the kitchen, Price stabbed at his stomach then stabbed him in the shoulder.
"I jumped in the bathroom and slammed the door shut, and I started yelling for everybody to wake up," Teyhen said. "He was kicking on the door, and I was holding the door. Blood was just squirting out all over the place. And then, he stopped kicking, and I came out. He was right there in the kitchen. He came around, and I just put my arm up, and he hit my left arm, fractured a little bone. It looked like a chainsaw cut me."
Teyhen said no one at the rooming house knew Price recently had been released from the State Hospital.
"When you look at something like that, you can kick it around so many different ways because of lawyers and the laws and how things are written and so fourth," Teyhen said. "If anything, he should have been put into a rehab. He shouldn't have even been here, at the rooming house."
NW News on 08/31/2016