Anchorage Daily News

Almost a year after his son attacked him with a machete, Corey Chasteen can barely see where his neck was sliced from ear lobe to Adam's apple. His hair has grown back where surgeons used metal to re-form his skull. The slashed flesh on his back has faded to a purple scar.

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Leland Chasteen

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If only his mind would heal that easily.

Again and again, he dreams of the screaming. He sees his son Leland, his flat eyes, clutching the long knife. He wakes, sweating in the dark. Once the fear subsides, there is heartbreak and then anger.

Leland is a bipolar schizophrenic who struggled for years with taking his medication, bouncing in and out of Alaska Psychiatric Institute and jail. Leland was delusional during the attack last November, he and his father said. If his son could have found the help he needed, Corey said, the attack might have never happened.

Leland, 23, is in jail, charged with attempted murder.

Corey's scars aren't his only reminders of the attack. He fell from a second-story balcony fleeing his son and snapped his wrists. Now his hands hang at strange angles, and he can hold no more than 10 pounds, making him too weak to go back to work repairing RVs. His roommate and buddy, Jeremy Marvin, suffered disfiguring scarring.

Leland is expected to accept a plea agreement Friday that will reduce his charge and give him 10 years in prison. Corey doesn't think he belongs there.

"I don't think it's fair for him to spend time incarcerated for something that if you ask him today what happened he totally has no clue," Corey said. "It's not fair for him to have the disease in the first place."

UNPREDICTABLE MOODS

Leland's mental illness has tested those around him since he was a boy. Corey adopted Leland as a toddler and raised him with his biological mother until they divorced when Leland was a teen. Then he and Leland were on their own. Leland's mother wouldn't comment for this story.

For a decade, Corey wrestled with the riddle of adolescence and bipolar disorder, trying to untangle what bad behavior Leland could control and what he couldn't. There were fights. Leland dropped out of school. Sometimes he'd disappear for days. Then when Leland was 19, came another diagnosis: schizophrenia. Along with unpredictable moods came delusions, paranoia and periods of disturbing silence.

The older Leland got, the less it seemed Corey could keep him safe. Leland moved out on his own, supported by disability checks. Corey phoned him. He brought him food. But he couldn't watch him all the time. Leland was an adult, expected to be responsible, even though sometimes his disordered thoughts made him unable to take care of himself.

In jail, Leland has been taking his medication for almost a year and hasn't had symptoms of mental illness. He says he doesn't remember most of the attack, but he knows he did something wrong and thinks it fair he pay for it. If he could go back in time and stop himself he would, he said.

"I have been thinking about what I could do, how I could apologize. Other than saying I'm sorry, there's nothing really I can do right now," he said.

In some states, his lawyer might argue he was not guilty by reason of insanity. But in Alaska, the definition of insanity is so narrow, the defense is almost impossible to prove. His lawyer wasn't available for comment.

In a way, going to jail gives Leland peace of mind. Someone else can help him remember to take his medication, he said. He knows he won't hurt anyone.

"I'm a nice, easygoing, fun-loving person when I'm OK," he said. "Going to prison is what I need to straighten my life out a little bit because it was kind of chaotic out there."

THE MACHETE

The deep waves of panic began a week before the attack, Leland said. That was after months of chaotic thinking that stopped him from taking his medications. Schizophrenia takes away insight and judgment. Logistics that seem simple can be crippling.

Leland's prescription ran out, and he wasn't sure how to get a refill without going to the emergency room, he said. He worried he'd end up back in API. He had no primary-care doctor. The only psychiatrists he knew were at API or in jail. He wasn't sure who to call and the longer he went without medicine, the more paralyzed he became. He soothed himself with marijuana and alcohol.

A week before the attack, his landlord called his father, saying that Leland had been acting odd. Corey came over and they talked about getting help. Leland went to his closet, took out a machete and gave it to his father. It was a present, he said. Looking back, Leland thinks he was trying to get rid it of because he didn't trust himself.

Soon afterward Leland's landlord found him outside in his underwear and called police. He ended up in API for several days, he can't remember how many. He got a new prescription, had it filled and then misplaced the pills. When Corey visited him the next time, Leland was confused and upset.

On Nov. 27, Corey called a counselor and got an appointment for the next day at 10 a.m. Leland stayed the night at his father's house. He wouldn't say much, his father said.

As a favor, Corey's roommate Marvin had sharpened the machete. When they all went to bed that night, it sat in the living room, leaning against the television.

THE ATTACK

On the morning of Nov. 28, Leland remembers waking up. He remembers going to the balcony to roll and smoke a cigarette. Then came a hot wave of fear. After that, his memories are botched and grainy, like he is watching himself in a movie with scenes missing, he said.

"I remember seeing a gun, and then I grabbed the knife and then I hit Jeremy with the knife until he fell down," he said.

Corey's memory begins with screaming. Adrenaline pulled him out of bed to Marvin's room. Leland stood over Marvin, the machete in his grip. A gash had opened Marvin's head. Leland knew Corey's look.

He turned on his father, cracking him in the head too.

"No! No!" Corey yelled, trying to shake his son free from his delusion.

Corey ran into the bathroom. Leland followed, standing outside the door with his knife.

"I saw myself in the mirror and it was like a river of blood running down my head," Corey said.

Corey ripped a towel rack off the wall and waved it at Leland as he tried to escape, but Leland sliced him in the neck and the back with the knife.

Corey fled to the balcony and climbed over. Blood made the railings slick. Leland stood over him, his face blank. Corey couldn't hold on and fell.

FORGIVENESS

Leland heard his dad yelling at him. He remembers thinking vaguely that he was hurting someone he knew.

"I realized what I did and I ran off," he said. "I didn't mean to hurt anybody, it was just I thought I had to protect myself because I saw a gun."

But there wasn't any gun.

Leland slipped away, into his neighborhood. He dumped the machete in a trash can at Gladys Wood Elementary. The quiet calmed him. He watched a police car drive by. Eventually he wandered onto a People Mover, and that's when someone spotted him, and police surrounded the bus.

"I knew I hurt somebody and I knew for the police to show up, from what the police said, it was pretty bloody," he said.

He didn't realize he'd hurt his father until he made his first appearance in court. There was Corey in the courtroom, bandages on his head, neck and arms. Part of Leland still can't believe what he did.

Corey's life has slowed down now that he can't work. He wonders what he could have done to raise Leland better. He regrets some things. His bones ache and nightmares steal his sleep. It would be easier to let Leland and his problems go, but he can't.

"He's my son," he said. "You have to learn how to forgive."

Find Julia O'Malley online at adn.com/contact/jomalley or call 257-4591.

Mental illness and crime a worry to caregivers

Alaska mental health providers say that there aren't enough services for people with chronic mental illness, not enough housing or help in taking their medication.

Someone can wait six weeks to see a psychiatrist, they say. And once they're in, some patients have trouble staying in, with no one to track them down when they stray.

Violence is rare, but too often people cause minor trouble, said Terry Osback, medical director at Anchorage Community Mental Health Services. They're picked up by police, and they end up in jail.

The correctional system is the biggest mental health provider in the state.

About two in every 10 people in the system have a serious chronic mental illness like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, many times the percentage of seriously mentally ill people in the general population, according to Laura Brooks, mental health director for the state Department of Corrections.

"I get phone calls from parents on a regular basis where they say, 'I am so grateful my son or my daughter got arrested because they are finally getting the mental heath care they need,' " she said. "That's a really sad testament to our mental health system."

Mental health providers in the jail struggle constantly with how to find services for inmates once they're released, she said. Mentally ill offenders are twice as likely to return to jail.

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