DETROIT (WXYZ) — The man suspected of fatally stabbing a Detroit restaurant employee in broad daylight Sunday was hospitalized for serious mental illness in July, then released weeks before the attack.
7 News Detroit is not naming the 42-year-old man who Detroit police say is responsible for the attack behind a Chipotle restaurant off Campus Martius downtown, leaving a mother dead, because he has not been charged.
Court records reveal that the man was petitioned by a nurse with Havenwyck Hospital in Auburn Hills on July 3, with the nurse writing that he’d been brought to the emergency room by police for “acting out at a coffee shop.”
She wrote that the man was “not making sense” and “appears psychotic,” and that he “does not know where he is, making nonsensical statements.”
A doctor who examined the man wrote that he was experiencing “active delirium” and “unable to cooperate or answer questions correctly,” diagnosing him with acute psychosis.
On July 13, a Wayne County probate judge granted the petition, ordering up to 180 days of treatment with no more than 60 days to take place at Havenwyck Hospital.
The man was ordered to receive assisted outpatient treatment in once he was discharged.
It is not clear how long he was hospitalized, but police sources say he was released from the hospital sometime in August.
The fatal stabbing raises significant questions about the treatment that man received while hospitalized and the follow-up carer that was supposed to come next.
Stay with 7 News Detroit on this breaking story.
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com or at (248) 827-9466.