{"id":2021,"date":"2025-07-26T15:59:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T22:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writingthenorthwest.com\/?p=2021"},"modified":"2025-07-27T12:55:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T19:55:40","slug":"guest-review-murder-mental-illness-mercy-in-seattle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writingthenorthwest.com\/?p=2021","title":{"rendered":"Guest Review: Murder, Mental Illness & Mercy in Seattle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by George Rede<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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July 18, 2009 was another hot summer day in Seattle. Two women in their 30s who\u2019d found love there and made plans for a commitment ceremony had an ordinary day. They ate dinner at home, watched a movie, then went to sleep around midnight in their little red house south of downtown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometime during the night, a prowler in their quiet neighborhood spotted the windows the couple had left open on a hot summer night. The young man was homeless, unemployed, and going back and forth between jail, local courtrooms and mental hospitals. He\u2019d been raised by an authoritarian father and a mother with a history of mental illness in her family. He was armed with a long knife and bad intentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can imagine what happened next: A loving couple viciously attacked by the intruder. A quick arrest. A lengthy process to determine if the suspect was competent to stand trial. And finally the trial itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image from Wikipedia<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Eli Sanders, associate editor for The Stranger<\/em>, a Seattle weekly newspaper, won a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2012<\/a> for his reporting on the murder of Teresa Butz and the near-fatal attack on her girlfriend, Jennifer Hopper. Both were sexually assaulted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building on that work, Sanders wrote a full-length book titled While The City Slept<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, that came out in 2016. I spotted the book in a Little Free Library box near my home and recently made time to give it my full attention. It\u2019s an excellent book in every respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reporting is rich and detailed; the writing is precise and disciplined; and the story spills out like a movie, with a prologue that sets the scene in this working class neighborhood and an epilogue that does justice to all the key characters raised in the book, including police, lawyers, judges, mental health workers and family members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanders fleshes out the personalities and family backgrounds of Teresa and Jennifer, as well as of their attacker, Isaiah Kalebu, then 23. Above all, the author does a masterful job explaining how the criminal justice and mental health systems intersected in this instance \u2014 and how Kalebu\u2019s case illuminates the woefully underfunded, understaffed mental health system that all too often sends damaged individuals into our communities to fend for themselves, with predictably bad outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somehow, the crime escaped my attention when it happened a decade ago. As a result, that made the book even more riveting as I followed the arc of a story that begins with a lovely romance; retraces the warning signs about a young man that went unheeded; and bores deeply into the public policies, underfunded programs and civil liberties protections against non-voluntary commitment that have resulted in a mental health system that produces too many Isaiahs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eli Sanders<\/em> (photo from Geore Rede’s Rough and Rede II<\/a> website)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a tragic story and one that Sanders tells with extraordinary empathy for all involved. The book jacket calls this account \u201ca wake-up call\u201d for mental health in America, but I can\u2019t say I was jolted into a new awareness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All around my city I see and hear individuals in obvious need of help. Typically they are disheveled and foul-mouthed, whether talking to themselves or screaming at no one in particular, most likely off their meds and living on the streets. Unfortunately, all too many wind up in jail rather than in a place that can treat their illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cuts to the nation\u2019s mental health care programs have spiked, with more than $4 billion cut from state mental health budgets alone between 2009 and 2012, according to Sanders. Additionally, a study in the spring of 2014 found there are now ten times as many<\/em> mentally ill inmates in this country\u2019s jails (over 350,000) as there are in state-funded psychiatric hospitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s shameful \u2014 and it should be no surprise that those poor souls, along with their families, their victims and all the rest of us, suffer the consequences of our nation\u2019s failure to devote enough resources to helping people in need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Gabriel<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer Hopper, the one who survived the brutal attack and testified about it in heartbreaking detail, sees this clearly. And to her credit, she doesn\u2019t demonize Isaiah, but forgives him \u2014 albeit on her terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addressing her attacker in court, nearly two years after the crime, she says to Isaiah, \u201cI do say to you that I do wish you peace, and I do not hate you, and I am so sorry for whatever it is in your life that brought you to this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has taken much from her, and although pieces of her will always be broken, she wishes him no harm and does not seek revenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, she tells Sanders that seeing a picture of Isaiah\u2019s mother taken in court soon after his arrest made her realize he was somebody\u2019s child, and that she could then see his humanity. And while she forgave Isaiah in court, that didn\u2019t mean what he did to her was OK, but only that she was restoring the \u201crelationship\u201d they would have had before \u2014 as strangers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I were in Jennifer\u2019s place, I don\u2019t know that I could extend mercy to a killer. That she did shows the character of the woman that Teresa Butz never got to marry \u2014 and it will resonate with me whenever I think back on this book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

~ ~ ~ ~ ~<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Rede<\/strong> is a former reporter and editor for the Oregonian and adjunct professor at Portland State University and WSU-Vancouver. He describes himself as “a husband, father and son who’s been blogging since March 2009,” and “a Capricorn and native Californian who long ago became a true blue Oregonian.” This review is reprinted from his blog Rough and Rede II<\/strong><\/a>, where you’ll find other book reviews, along with Rede’s thoughts on other subjects. You can contact him at ghfunq@msn.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eli Sanders website<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pulitzer Prize website announcement of Sanders’ award<\/a> (with a link to his story in The Stranger<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Rede’s “Rough and Rede II” website<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Help for Mental Illnesses<\/a><\/em>\u2013National Institute of Mental Health webpage<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Order<\/strong> While the City Slept<\/em> from Bookshop.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other George Rede reviews of Pacific Northwest-related books:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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‘The Free’: A story of working-class struggle<\/a><\/blockquote>