[wolf]

There is a local NGRI defense that succeeded. Robert the Crazy Guy who Sleeps on the Porch Sometimes was talking to me about him last night. He was his roommate for a while.

He has pretty much the run of the grounds, and works in the Cafeteria. They have been letting him off grounds to attend church, which was a big amendment in his detention order. He has gotten married while hospitalized, twice. Wife #3 is someone that Richard met online. Wife #2 was a nurse at the State Hospital. She committed suicide about a year after they married. He killed Wife #1 (who was pregnant).

The photograph of him coming out of the house after killing his wife won a Pulitzer Prize.

08/03/2006
Greist has to stay put
R. JONATHAN TULEYA , Staff Writer

WEST CHESTER -- A Chester County judge denied Richard Greist’s latest attempt to be released from Norristown State Hospital, calling the institutionalized killer unmotivated to address his mental illness and too focused on getting released from Norristown State Hospital.
"Mr. Greist’s only concern is with his own release from custody and to this end he manipulates (hospital) staff and dictates his own treatment," Common Pleas Court Judge Edward Griffith wrote in a order released Tuesday. "Mr. Greist has no interest in addressing the concerns of the this court, such as his lack of empathy, his manipulative behavior, his impulsivity and triggers of stress and frustration."

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On May 10, 1978, Greist, now 54, killed his pregnant wife and their unborn son and viciously attacked his daughters, ages 5 and 6 at the time, and the girls’ grandmother.

He has been a patient at Norristown State Hospital since Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas A. Pitt Jr. ruled that Greist was not guilty by reason of insanity in December 1980.

On Thursday, Griffith listened as Greist and his attorney, Marita M. Hutchinson, argued for the killer to be moved to a less-structured, residential facility. Two of Greist’s psychiatrists -- Dr. Robert D. Polishook, his supervising psychiatrist at Norristown, and Dr. Robert F. Limoges, a therapist who sees him weekly -- testified in support of the move.

Dr. Barbara E. Ziv, a psychiatrist called to testify by the district attorney’s office, told the judge she had not seen any improvement in Greist’s mental condition, and she warned no one could predict how the stress of life outside the hospital would affect him.

In his decision, Griffith ordered Greist to stop seeing Limoges for therapy. Limoges had testified last week that he did not believe Greist currently suffered from any mental illness.

Griffin also instructed Norristown State to continue Greist’s psychiatric treatment with emphasizing "insight-oriented therapy," as had been originally called for 2003.

"Another year has passed and again (the hospital) has been non-compliant with the directive that Mr. Greist receive intensive, insight-oriented therapy," Griffith wrote. "As we have held in the past, we find such treatment is not only necessary but also critical to Mr. Greist’s recovery."

The judge’s order left a number of the conditions of Greist’s institutionalization in place.

Greist will continue to be allowed to travel off the Norristown State Hospital property to attend therapy sessions and to go to religious services at the West Norristown Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

He also will continue to be granted one 12-hour, unsupervised leave from the hospital every three months, according to Griffith’s order.

As a condition of these trips from the hospitals, the hospital must notify local law enforcement and the Chester County District Attorney’s Office.

To contact staff writer R. Jonathan Tuleya, send an e-mail to jtuleya@dailylocal.com.