TW/CW: Parricide, Mental Illness, Medical Abuse, Imprisonment
I am huge fan of true crime-tv shows, books, documentaries; you name it and I’ve probablyTW/CW: Parricide, Mental Illness, Medical Abuse, Imprisonment
I am huge fan of true crime-tv shows, books, documentaries; you name it and I’ve probably watched it or read about it. So, when I was looking for an audiobook to review on NetGalley and saw that a true crime audiobook was available, I jumped all over it. It didn’t take very long for me to realize that Couple Found Slain wasn’t your average true crime book.
Couple Found Slain by author Mikita Brottman chronicles the story of Brian Bechtold, a patient at the Clifford T. Perkins Center, a forensic psychiatric facility. Right off the bat, this story is different because it begins with 22-year-old Brian Bechtold entering a Florida police station and telling the police there that he murdered both of his parents. Found incompetent to stand trial, Brian is sentenced to a psychiatric facility with no determined date of release.
This story is more than the story of a man who killed his parents brutally. It is the story of how the mentally ill can be sent to facilities such as Perkins without a clear treatment plan and no plan for rehabilitation. And as you will read in the book, often they cannot even keep the patients safe from each other.
Brian was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic but later feels that he is cured and should be on the path to be released back into society. Doctors and other medical professionals feel that he is hiding his symptoms and needs to be on psychiatric medication. The medication makes him feel worse. The notes the doctors make on Brian get passed from doctor-to-doctor treating Brian over the years, each adding their own differentiating diagnoses. It becomes difficult to tell what the doctors are seeing in Brian and what they are being told by other professionals and accepting as truth.
This story is well researched and presented well, beginning with Brian’s family history of abuse, the murders of his parents, and moving on to his incarceration in Perkins, and how the desperation to be treated fairly and justly leads to desperation and reckless choices. The writer’s empathy for Brian is evident, but it doesn’t affect their ability to tell his story objectively. Brian Bechtold entered Clifford T. Perkins in 1992 and remains there until this very day.
4/5 Stars Thank you to #NetGalley and #MacMillanAudio for providing me with an audiobook version of this book for my review. All thoughts and opinions are my own....more
The Last House on Needless Street is probably one of the most original takes on a horror story that I have read in a very long time. To attempt to desThe Last House on Needless Street is probably one of the most original takes on a horror story that I have read in a very long time. To attempt to describe it would be impossible without giving some spoilers. I thought I was pretty sure what was going on, but it felt like a rollercoaster ride—each twist a little wilder than the one preceding it. At one point, I thought for sure the story had to be close to ending, but I was pleasantly surprised to know that there was so much more to go.
If you are a fan of audiobooks, you are in for a treat. The extremely talented narrator, Christopher Ragland, kept me engaged throughout the entire book and did a great job of giving each character their own personality and voice. I hope to find more books read by him soon.
The Last House on Needless Street is 5/5 stars for me and was one of my top books of 2021. Safe to say I’m now a Catriona Ward fan.
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