Garrett White Photo courtesy Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office
Police charged a 34-year-old Freeport man Tuesday with the attempted murder of his parents following an assault that may have been the result of a schizophrenic episode.
Garrett M. White was ordered held on $10,000 bail and will undergo a mental evaluation to determine whether he is competent to stand trial. He is charged with one count of attempted murder, one count of aggravated assault and two counts of criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon.
According to court records, White’s parents, Martin White, 70, and Gaye White, 65, called police about 2:45 a.m. after Garrett White broke down their bedroom door at their Estes Drive home and told them they were going to die.
Garrett White, who suffers from schizophrenia and has had violent outbursts before, had stabbed his father earlier in the evening about 11:30 p.m., but the couple believed they had the situation under control for the night and planned to take their son to Spring Harbor hospital in the morning, according to police and witness reports filed in court.
But they were awoken by White, who broke down their door, insisting that if his father did not drink bleach and die, White would have to kill everyone.
Gaye White then attacked her son and the couple fought with him. At some point Martin White told his wife to run from the home and call to get help. She fled to the house of a neighbor who then called police, according to court records.
When officers arrived, they first found Martin White, his face bloodied and his arm bandaged. Garrett White then emerged from the house, and police ordered him to the ground and took him into custody without incident.
Once secured in handcuffs, officers briefly questioned him.
“I asked Garrett ‘What is going on here tonight?’ to which Garrett replied that he got into a fight with his father and that he had stabbed him because his father was raping him every night (in his head) and that his father was stealing his time and he could not take it anymore,” one of the responding officers wrote in a report that was filed in Cumberland County Unified Criminal Court.
Garrett White was briefly questioned again before he was taken away from the scene.
“During the interview, Garrett made several admissions under Miranda that he in fact stabbed his father several times, and that he also tried to make him drink bleach so that he would end his own life,” a police officer wrote in a report. “Garrett stated that he had done (so) because he believed that his deceased grandmother and God had shown him visions of his father repeatedly ‘raping him’ in order to ‘steal his energy,’ and that his father’s death would be his ‘only way out.’ ”
Both Martin and Gaye White were transported to Mercy Hospital in Portland where they were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
Gaye White had several bruises and grab marks, and complained of pain in her head, according to a police report. Martin White sustained a broken nose and numerous cuts and bruises.
Police also transported Garrett White to a Portland hospital to be treated for minor injuries before he was booked into Cumberland County Jail without incident.
Inside their home, police recovered a knife; documented likely blood stains on the floors, mattresses and walls; and observed a broken lock on the door to a bedroom, according to a police report.
Matt Byrne can be contacted at 791-6303 or at:
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