Couple Found Slain: After a Family Murder

"Mikita Brottman is one of today's finest practitioners of nonfiction."
--The New York Times Book Review

Critically acclaimed author and psychoanalyst Mikita Brottman offers literary true crime writing at its best, taking us into the life of a murderer after his conviction--when most stories end but the defendant's life goes on.

On February 21, 1992, 22-year-old Brian Bechtold walked into a police station in Port St. Joe, Florida and confessed that he'd shot and killed his parents in their family home in Silver Spring, Maryland. He said he'd been possessed by the devil. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and ruled "not criminally responsible" for the murders on grounds of insanity.

But after the trial, where do the criminally insane go? Brottman reveals Brian's inner life leading up to the murder, as well as his complicated afterlife in a maximum security psychiatric hospital, where he is neither imprisoned nor free. During his 27 years at the hospital, Brian has tried to escape and been shot by police, and has witnessed three patient-on-patient murders. He's experienced the drugging of patients beyond recognition, a sadistic system of rewards and punishments, and the short-lived reign of a crazed psychiatrist-turned-stalker.

In the tradition of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Couple Found Slain is an insider's account of life in the underworld of forensic psych wards in America and the forgotten lives of those held there, often indefinitely.

Author: Mikita Brottman
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Published: 07/06/2021
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.60h x 6.30w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781250757449

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 05/01/2021 pg. 82
Booklist 05/01/2021 pg. 6
Publishers Weekly 05/17/2021
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2021

About the Author
Mikita Brottman, PhD, is an Oxford-educated scholar and psychoanalyst and the author of several previous books, including An Unexplained Death, The Great Grisby, and The Maximum Security Book Club. She is a professor of humanities at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore