He saw angels, his family saw heartbreak

of current findings *** Over the next nine months, Levi, his mother and grandfather contacted mental health professionals more than a dozen times, and Levi voluntarily went to a walk-in clinic operated by re:solve three times, staying a total of 10 days.

May 28, 2012: Levi called re:solve himself, telling them that his grandmother had stolen his knife and was trying to kill everyone in the house. He agreed to go to the walkin center, and while there told a clinician that a couple of days earlier, he had awakened to his grandmother standing in his room with a knife. He called police about his concerns, as well. Levi reported that he was not delusional or paranoid and not psychotic.

“He reports that everyone else in his house has [mental health] concerns and they are the ones that are delusional and dealing with psychosis,” one clinician wrote in a report. Levi was discharged the next day. Aug. 26, 2012: Ruth called the crisis team and reported that Levi had taken his brother’s car to a local store but then couldn’t find it in the parking lot. He called the police, who located the car, and returned Levi to his home with a request that he receive mental health treatment. When the team from re:solve arrived, they noted that Levi appeared to be high and had unusual hand movements. On evaluation, Levi reported having paranoid delusions, including that others were attacking him. He reported hearing God and having other auditory hallucinations. He agreed to go to the walk-in clinic, where he remained until Aug. 28.

Again, on discharge, Levi refused medication.

Sept. 8, 2012: Ruth asked that the crisis team visit Levi because she had found him at 5 a.m. burning a Bible page by page in a steel mixing bowl in his bedroom. When she told him to stop, he took the Bible outside, she reported, and used a blowtorch.

In the report on the visit, the clinician wrote, “Delusions included believ[ing] he is a six-winged seraphim [angel] and that angels speak to him and tell him what to do.”

The team stayed at the home for two hours and then left, urging Levi to call re:solve if necessary.

Nov. 24, 2012: The Johnston family had relatives over for an after-Thanksgiving holiday dinner, and Levi, believing that the house was full of poison gas, sat outside in the 30-degree temperatures for hours with his arms held out in front of him. When he finally went inside, he tumbled down the basement stairs, breaking his nose and causing a compression fracture in the vertebra in his back. At UPMC Presbyterian, he tried to teach the staff how to salute in the angelic army — by curling the toes up inside their shoes and moving their shoulders. He told a nurse that aliens pushed him down the stairs. The hospital released him the next day with the staff telling the family “It’s not illegal to be delusional,” which Ruth said she had been told repeatedly by others who had treated her son.

Nov. 25: The same day Levi was released from Presbyterian, Ruth picked him up and told him he had to go to the re:solve walk-in clinic, where he was admitted voluntarily but still refused anti-psychotic medication.

Nov. 27: A doctor said that Levi still did not meet the criteria for involuntary, in-patient treatment. He was discharged from the walk-in clinic on Nov. 30.

In an email Levi wrote to a family friend after the holiday dinner incident, he explained that he was a cyborg and credited his quick healing to having “impact absorbing cerebrospinal fluid from the Archangels.”

Jan. 3, 2013: Levi was arrested for shoplifting a bottle of cough medicine from a Walmart in Butler County. “He told me the angels had done it so he could tell the cops about Jesus,” Ruth said.

The preliminary hearing on the retail theft charge was scheduled for Feb. 21.

“Two days before that hearing, Levi killed my mom,” Ruth said.