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Man pleaded guilty but mentally ill in his mother's slaying
Dan Hunsberger knew the moment he arrived at his family's home near Quakertown and saw his little sister in tears, standing next to their older brother, Andy.
"My sister -- she was 7 at the time -- she said, 'Andy killed Mom,' " Dan Hunsberger recalls. "I went into the house and called the police."
Inside the Milford Township home on Oct. 14, 1985, Dan found his mother, Carol, shot to death.
A few minutes earlier, Andy had walked up behind his mother as she dusted furniture and fired a round from a .38-caliber handgun into her head.
Maximum penalty: Five years later, Andy Hunsberger pleaded guilty but mentally ill to third-degree murder. Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, he received the maximum penalty at the time: 10 to 20 years in prison.
On Oct. 14, 20 years to the day of the murder, Andy, now 43, will be released from prison because he received credit for time served. In prison terms, he will "max out," meaning he will have served the maximum sentence and cannot be denied release from jail.
As Andy's release nears, family members fear for their safety, unnerved by the possibility that he remains violent and mentally unstable but will not be committed to a state mental health facility. At issue is the state's Mental Health Act, which requires that a potentially unstable person, to be involuntarily committed, must have posed a clear danger to himself and others within the previous 30 days.
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/nationworld/ci_3096152
Dan Hunsberger knew the moment he arrived at his family's home near Quakertown and saw his little sister in tears, standing next to their older brother, Andy.
"My sister -- she was 7 at the time -- she said, 'Andy killed Mom,' " Dan Hunsberger recalls. "I went into the house and called the police."
Inside the Milford Township home on Oct. 14, 1985, Dan found his mother, Carol, shot to death.
A few minutes earlier, Andy had walked up behind his mother as she dusted furniture and fired a round from a .38-caliber handgun into her head.
Maximum penalty: Five years later, Andy Hunsberger pleaded guilty but mentally ill to third-degree murder. Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, he received the maximum penalty at the time: 10 to 20 years in prison.
On Oct. 14, 20 years to the day of the murder, Andy, now 43, will be released from prison because he received credit for time served. In prison terms, he will "max out," meaning he will have served the maximum sentence and cannot be denied release from jail.
As Andy's release nears, family members fear for their safety, unnerved by the possibility that he remains violent and mentally unstable but will not be committed to a state mental health facility. At issue is the state's Mental Health Act, which requires that a potentially unstable person, to be involuntarily committed, must have posed a clear danger to himself and others within the previous 30 days.
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/nationworld/ci_3096152