Tales from Kentucky Sheriffs

3. Mentally Deprived People

Chapter 3 MENTALLY DEPRIVED PEOPLE The stories herein describe sheriffs’ encounters with mentally incompetent people who found themselves on the wrong side of the law. We read of a man who entered someone else’s home, thinking it was his own; a fellow who shot and killed a deputy sheriff; a woman who threatened to cut off a deputy sheriff’s head. In one tragic story in a different vein, a young autistic girl accidentally drowned. Wrong House There’s a private hospital in Nashville that is kind of like Western State in Hopkinsville. One night a fellow in there got out. Well, a doctor had left his key in his car, and this mentally instable fellow got in the doctor’s car and drove up 31W, and he got down here in Rich Pond, Warren County. A farmer [and] his wife had gone to bed upstairs in their house. We don’t know if this fellow unlocked the door, or if it was unlocked , but he went to the door at the house and went in. He turned on the TV, and was watching it as he sat there with a big cowboy hat on. The farmer’s wife said to her husband, “You left the TV on.” He said, “No, I didn’t,” then picked up his gun and went downstairs, and there this old boy sat. He thought he was home, so when the farmer asked, “How are you doing?” the fellow said, “Yes, sir.” So the farmer called us and we went down there to Rich Pond. To make a long story short, this fellow got out of the hospital. And everything just clicked in his favor. He thought he was home because he had seen the night-light. He wasn’t no trouble to arrest. We brought him back and put him in jail. His mama and daddy came over here and got him in an ambulance they were driving from Nashville. They had bought a brand-new Mercedes. Mentally Deprived People 75 This fellow they had come to pick up still had on that big cowboy hat. He said something to his daddy, then his mama just slapped him right up on his head. I got tickled at what she did. She rang his bell! So many things go on that are funny when you arrest someone. Jerry “Peanuts” Gaines, Warren County, July 20, 2009 Mentally Deprived Killer This fellow has been incarcerated in a mental institution for several years, and they bring him back once a year to evaluate him. He has talked to us about hearing voices that tell him to kill people, and he actually did kill two people. He told us all about it. One of those killings happened here in Hart County, and that’s the reason he’s up there in the institution. I don’t know who would have arrested him, but he’s never been tried for that offence. But the sheriff’s office has to go pick him up every year, and he gets evaluated. Boston B. Hensley Jr. and Deputy James Veluzat, Hart County, July 30, 2009 Deputy Killed On May 15, 1979, I had a deputy killed in a line of duty. His name was Earl Smith, and he was a fine gentleman. He had received a complaint about a person in his neighborhood that had a very bad reputation, and had already been arrested by Deputy Smith. This man had been shooting a pistol in his neighborhood, so a neighbor obtained a warrant for this person. Deputy Smith had a couple of other deputy sheriffs to go with him to the mobile home this fellow lived in. Deputy Smith told the other two deputies to go to the front door of the mobile home, and he’d go to the back door and try to ease in and get him. This way the two deputies at the front door would keep him occupied at the front door. In the meantime, the fellow left his living room in the mobile home and walked back through the hallway. The two deputies at the front door didn’t see him do that. So when Deputy Smith tried to open the back door, he found that it was locked. So evidently the person they were trying to get heard him and shot five rounds through the window of the door with a fully loaded .38 revolver, and hit my deputy with three rounds in the...