Joel Otto Walker mugshot
(Stillwater, Okla.) – A Cushing man, who was charged two years ago with stabbing two men at Beasley Technology in Cushing and threatening to kill others, remains mentally ill and dangerous, a Payne County judge ruled Friday in ordering that Joel Otto Walker be committed to the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health for treatment at the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita.
Walker, 54, who was ruled insane when the crimes were committed, “has a history of non-compliance, a history of anti-social behavior,” and must not be released from the maximum security facility without notice to this court, Associate District Judge Stephen Kistler ordered Friday at the close of a mandatory review of Walker, who had been sent to the Forensic Center two months ago for an examination.
In court Friday, Walker was quiet, in handcuffs and under heavy guard at the two-hour hearing before the judge to determine if he could be released.
District Attorney Laura Austin Thomas argued successfully, “He’s currently receiving no treatment except medication. We have a history of Mr. Walker going off his meds, a history of Mr. Walker’s non-compliance of court orders.
“It’s clear he’s presently dangerous. If you discharge him today, he’s going to stop his medication…The Forensic Center is the only place in the state of Oklahoma that is secure,” the prosecutor added.
Walker’s court-appointed defense attorney Royce Hobbs told the judge, “We should provide for a less restrictive facility, but we don’t have that funding,” in Oklahoma. “I believe Mr. Walker could be in a less restricted facility if we had an appropriate one,” Hobbs said — in asking that if the judge ruled Walker remains dangerous, his status be reviewed annually, which the judge granted.
Explaining Walker’s mental condition, Dr. Moira RedCorn, senior staff psychiatrist at the Oklahoma Forensic Center, told the judge that Walker has been diagnosed as having schizoaffective disorder, with narcissistic personality traits, and has been treated with anti-psychotic mediations. She said that Walker had previously used the illegal drug, methamphetamine.
Describing Oklahoma’s only maximum secure facility for people with serious mental disorders, the psychiatrist said, “We have 20 feet fences, crafts, groups, A.A., individual therapy.” She said “He’s been stable since I’ve seen him,” as his treating psychiatrist for the past 45 days.
“I would not expect him to be medication-compliant if he were released today,” the psychiatrist told the judge.
Walker’s belief in “remote neural monitoring is the cause of his criminal conduct,” the psychiatrist testified. “The defendant is a very educated man with a college degree…I feel safer for him with us,” at the secure facility, she told the judge.
In a written report to the court, the psychiatrist said that Walker “believed that he was being controlled remotely,” when the attack at Beasley Technology occurred. “Due to his poor insight into his illness and his narcissistic personality traits, he is at risk of relapse due to his over-inflated belief in his abilities to handle frustrating situations,” the psychiatrist noted.
”Dr. Linda S. Evans, a psychologist in private practice, who previously worked for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and provides mental health care for the Payne County Jail, testified that Walker “was a danger to people in jail,” where he was held in a single cell for one year.
She said that Walker is a very bright man with a lifelong illness of schizoaffective bipolar disorder and narcissistic personality traits such as a “sense of grandiosity,” and a tendency to blame other people for his problems. Asked if Walker would be dangerous if he still believed that he has neural monitoring, the psychologist told the judge “yes.”
She said that she suspected Walker lied when he told Dr. Scott Orth, the director of forensic psychology at the Oklahoma Forensic Center, that he no longer believed he had remote neural monitoring.
Walker has continuously been in custody for the past two years since his arrest, according to court records.
At Beasley Technology where two men were stabbed on Oct. 3, 2016, Walker made anti-Semitic statements and threatened to kill employees at the business, according to an affidavit by a Cushing police officer who wrote that Beasley also threatened to kill her.
“Mr. Walker reports a history of experiencing both auditory and visual hallucinations,” which he said he no longer has, according to the report to the court by Dr. Orth.
***
