A former Shelton resident confined to a maximum-security psychiatric facility last fall in connection to a 2010 knife attack against his sister will likely remain there, an official with a psychiatric review board said Friday.
The man, Toai Nguyen, had been tried on a charge of attempted murder at Superior Court in Milford last year. At the end of the trial, Judge Richard Arnold found Nguyen not guilty by reason of mental disease.
Background
Nguyen was arrested in October 2010 after he attacked his sister inside his Maple Street apartment. The sister fought off Nguyen and ran out of the apartment, but suffered serious injuries.
At Nguyen’s trial, police officers said when they arrived on scene, Nguyen’s sister was on the porch outside the apartment, with a 7‑inch wound on her throat, and stab wounds on her head and arms. Her left ring finger had almost been sliced off her hand. The woman and the apartment were covered in blood, officers said.
After the trial Judge Arnold found Nguyen not guilty by reason of mental disease and ordered him sent for an evaluation at Whiting Forensic Institute, a maximum-security psychiatric facility in Middletown.
Nguyen has a well-documented history of paranoid schizophrenia, a mental illness that causes Nguyen to hear voices, and believe people are trying to hurt him — particularly his family, according to Dr. Peter M. Zeman, a psychiatrist at the Institute of Living in Hartford who testified at a subsequent hearing.
In June, Zeman testified at Nguyen’s trial that he has evaluated Nguyen four times since 2009. The first two evaluations were for a court case where Nguyen was accused of severely beating his father with The Club, a vehicle anti-theft device, while his father was driving him to the hospital during a psychotic episode.
Zeman said Nguyen was “actively psychotic, suffering from a severe psychiatric illness” when he attacked his sister. Furthermore, Zemen said during the attack Nguyen lacked the ability to comprehend what he was doing was wrong.
Judge Arnold then ordered Nguyen committed for up to 20 years, citing the danger he posted to himself and others, especially in light of the fact that when left to his own devices, he frequently stopped taking medications that kept his conditions in check.
Psychiatric Review Board
Under state law, Connecticut’s Psychiatric Security Review Board had to hold a hearing within 90 days of Judge Arnold ordering Nguyen committed to review Nguyen’s status.
That hearing, which was closed to the public, took place Friday morning at Whiting, according to Ellen Lachance, the executive director of the Psychiatric Security Review Board.
It’s the board’s responsibility to decide how to treat criminal defendants who are found not guilty of a crime by mental disease or defect.
Click here to read more about the process.
The purpose of Friday’s hearing was basically to give the board a chance to review the facts of the case and Nguyen’s psychiatric history, Lachance said.
Since only three members of the six-member board were able to attend the hearing, the board made no decision as to Nguyen’s confinement after the closed session, she said.
But Nguyen will likely remain confined based on the advice of doctors treating him, she said.
“The recommendation of the hospital was that he remain in maximum security,” Lachance said. “I fully expect that the board will continue his confinement in maximum security.”
That determination will likely be made at the board’s next meeting, which has not yet been scheduled, Lachance said.
