Sunday, April 10, 2011

Indianapolis, IN: Mom: Mental illness made my son kill

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WISH) - Saturday around 2 a.m. near 10th and Sherman Streets in Indianapolis, Oscar Hall killed his girlfriend. Now, his mother tells 24-Hour News 8 that an untreated mental disorder caused him to kill.
Hall's mother said there's no question he pulled the trigger, killing his girlfriend.
She also said he reached out for help, but no one listened.
“I don't know what happened,” Angela Griffith said. “I guess he might have heard the voices again. I don't know what was going through his mind.”
Angela Griffith said the voices caused her son to kill.
Police arrested Oscar Hall, 38, Saturday morning after finding his girlfriend, Lavenna Shorter,42, shot in the head.
“I know he was stressed out because his kids had been taken away from him and put in a foster home,” Griffith said. “He had a son [who] was 14. He was locked up.”
Angela said Hall, a father of six himself, reached out to her last weekend.
“He said, ‘Mom, I'm getting ready to go to the hospital,’” Griffith recalled.
Hall went on to tell his mother he needed medication.
“He said, ‘I'm hearing voices, and they're telling me to do bad things,’” Griffith said.
But Hall didn't get the medication,
“I’ve always told him, I hope he would never kill anybody,” Griffith said.
Griffith didn’t hesitate when asked if her son committed this murder.
“He did it,” she said. “I don't think he knows he did it. I don't think he remembers. But he did it.”
Hall’s criminal history landed him behind bars repeatedly for battery, criminal confinement and dealing cocaine.
He was released from prison this January, with another arrest in February.
Police said an argument set Oscar off Saturday morning, leading to the murder.
Shorter was shot in front of her daughter. The girl called 911.
“I just feel so bad for those people, her kids and her family,” Griffith said.

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