A blunder at the state Capitol has
delayed reforms designed to save
lives and offer better care for
people battling mental illness.
AJ Lagoe shares the latest
findings in our investigation.
The gap, failure to treat,
failure to protect and we want to warn you,
this report contains scenes of violence.
And that one was my 10th birthday.
I never forget to think about him.
Where many 15 year olds have a mirror. Yeah,
Madison Murphy has reflections of the past.
So good day. Really good day.
Her room filled with those echoes.
This was his second favorite
flannel that he wore all the time
of a man who without her.
No longer has a voice.
I just wanted to tell you about
my dad. He definitely didn't
deserve like what happened.
Someone in the house with their bloody face,
October 20th, 2022 downstairs and
there's blood all over the place.
Saint Paul police respond to a sober home,
leaving them in basement
unresponsive for a reported murder.
From the guy that we have in custody,
it sounds like there might
be 2 victims in the house.
There were two victims inside killed.
With a knife and hammer
and I saw
my mom crying like out the window,
she said. It's your dad
and I immediately knew.
That he wasn't here.
Madison's father, Jason Murphy,
was a handyman only at the
house to make repairs. Why?
Like. Why him?
Also murdered John Wentz,
an Army veteran living at the
home while in addiction recovery.
At the time, before he was killed,
he had been clean about a year. Angela
McGowan is another daughter now
fatherless after accused killer
Joseph Sandoval told police,
the TV said they were going to kill me
and told me to take the opportunity
and I just feel like there isn't
only two victims in this case.
There's three because Joseph Sandoval.
Didn't get the help that he needed?
There a lot of people that didn't
get shot. Joseph Sandovals is
a tragically familiar story.
For the past two years,
Carol Evans investigation
the gap has exposed murders,
rapes and violent assaults allowed
to happen because in Minnesota,
it was no one's job to try and
restore mentally ill individuals
charged with crimes to competency.
Too often, we found they're just released
without adequate care and oversight.
Here we go. Last
summer, lawmakers passed
sweeping bipartisan reforms,
but our investigation now
finds wires got crossed.
Unfortunately, yes,
state representative Heather
Edelson says a competency
restoration board was supposed to
be appointed immediately to set
up a new system and train 120 new
employees to help close the gap.
Is there a board at this point?
No, there's no funding for the board.
Remember, the state is sitting on a projected
$17 billion surplus, so why no funding?
The bill that was passed mistakenly stated
funding didn't start until fiscal year
2024. It's an era that we
are ideally like to fix.
Is getting this right a matter
of life and death? Absolutely.
For some families that is.
Joseph Sandoval could be a case study.
The 32 year old had a known
history of severe mental illness,
drug induced psychosis.
And violence long before 2
innocent men were murdered.
911 What is the address of
the emergency? September
2022, years before the sober home killings.
Well, I just had a guy burst through my
door and smashed a couple of my windows.
A Minneapolis home invaded.
He's just breaking random in
my house. He's all bloody.
He's a really big guy.
And his arms are just covered in
blood because he's been smashing
the windows with his bare hands.
Brian plunger. Working from home
when Joseph Sandoval broke in,
then began stacking furniture
in front of the doors.
No, no, please not. And you said that
he was using chairs to like barricade.
Yeah, and now he broke my couch. Or
were you able to tell pretty
quickly that this was a man
having a mental health crisis?
Yes. That was like,
my immediate impression was,
whoa, this guy needs some help.
Police came and took him to HCMC.
He didn't stay long.
Weeks later, records show he
attacked people with a knife,
this time taken to jail,
where, unprovoked,
he beat another inmate with a broom.
Charges in that case were
eventually dismissed.
Because Sandoval was mentally
incompetent to go to trial,
he ended up back on the streets.
His violence.
Escalated
Sandoval stole a cab, LED police on
a wild chase through Minneapolis.
With State Patrol helicopter overhead
recording telephone slammed into
a didn't even know what happened.
Just as I was getting tossed
he just ran somebody right over
Dylan Swisher has never seen
the video of being run down
it looks like. Love you, right, yeah.
We show him how he was hit
not just once, but twice
like that second time it looks
like he backs up in Ames, yes?
I don't know how you could come to
any other conclusion to be honest.
He just. Tribes. That me.
I'm a dude on the ground and he
drives directly for me.
You think he was trying to kill you,
yes. Sandoval eventually crashed
and was arrested, charged with assault
and theft. Found incompetent to
go to trial this time,
a judge ruled that as a
consequence of his mental illness,
he engages in grossly disturbed
behavior and he poses a substantial
likelihood of causing physical harm.
Sandoval was ordered civilly committed,
sent to the state-run Anoka
Metro Regional Treatment Center.
But five months
later, this system is broken.
Just as lawmakers were proposing changes
to deal with gap cases like his Sandoval,
still incompetent to stand trial,
was released, provisionally
discharged to Evergreen Recovery,
a Saint Paul Drug treatment Center.
How did you find out?
Like the case against him was
just kind of dropped or set aside
well, from you guys. Then,
five months after lawmakers passed reforms.
But didn't immediately fund them.
Joseph Sandoval moved into
the Saint Paul sober home.
Left on his own and within a
matter of hours. Two daughters.
Did not have fathers.
Two innocent men.
And now both of their families
have to live with them.
Representative Edelson has introduced
legislation she hopes will be passed
any day now to immediately begin
funding the competency restoration
reforms and close the gap.
For Carol Levin investigates.
I'm AJ lagoe.