Stepsister tells of torment.

Suspect’s stepsister says he was haunted by “voices” after using LSD years ago

Ostrem’s stepsister says the 47-year-old man’s brain was damaged nearly three decades ago by a bad LSD trip, which left him haunted by “voices.”

A 47-year-old Denver man suspected of killing three people at a Thornton Walmart had been haunted by voices telling him the devil was after him since a bad LSD trip damaged his brain 29 years ago, his stepsister says.

Michelle Willoughby, 43, said she’s unhappy with how stepbrother Scott Ostrem has been portrayed on social media.

“My brother is not this monster,” said Willoughby, who lives in Cocoa Beach, Fla. “He is not coldblooded. He hears these voices. Honestly, in my heart, I believe there is only so much a person can take.

“I never thought something like this would happen.”

According to police, Ostrem casually entered the Walmart at 9901 Grant St. on Nov. 1 at 6:10 p.m., pulled out a handgun and began shooting. He allegedly fatally shot Pamela Marques, 52; Carlos Moreno, 66; and Victor Vasquez, 26. Thornton police arrested Ostrem on Thursday morning.

Willoughby called The Denver Post from a boat in the “middle of the (Atlantic) Ocean” after receiving death threats and hate emails after she tried to defend her brother on social media.

Willoughby believes she can trace what led to the fatal shooting to a drug party her brother attended in 1988, where he ingested 16 doses of the powerful hallucinogen LSD. His life and the lives of his family members were forever changed, she said. But Ostrem only received counseling from his priest and never saw a mental health professional, she said.

Willoughby says she is heartbroken for the three victims and the other people who were in the store. She knows that they will forever be affected, but she believes her brother was not in his right mind.

“I love my brother. I stand be-

hind him. I’m not going to stop loving him. I love him unconditionally,” she said.

Before taking LSD, Ostrem was an outgoing, social person who sometimes had multiple girlfriends. He played football, water skied, fished, hunted and went camping every weekend in the summer. He spent hours in the gym.

“My brother was a people person. He had a different aura,” Willoughby said. “I adored him.”

But Ostrem’s effervescent personality changed immediately after the party, she said.

“When he came home, he was terrified. He had voices in his head. Demons. My brother was freaking out,” she said. “He was screaming that the devil was after him.”

The family contacted a hospital for help, but Ostrem received only drug intervention.

Family members, who were Catholic, mostly attended Mass at Christmas and Easter.

After the bad drug trip, a priest began visiting with Ostrem three times a week. His interest in Ostrem lasted for years.

The priest would read the Bible with Ostrem and spent hours during each visit. Although the family left the pair so they’d have their privacy, Willoughby said on dozens of occasions she saw the priest place a crucifix on Ostrem’s forehead and bless him. The priest commanded demons to leave his body and asked God to halt the voices in Ostrem’s head.

“He cared about my brother,” Willoughby said. “It wasn’t like we went to church. The church came to us.”

Willoughby couldn’t remember the priest’s name, but said after he died, Ostrem continued to read Scriptures.

But the voices returned and Ostem became a recluse, his sister said. Those voices told him that his neighbors, people he met on the street and people driving cars next to him in traffic were demons, Willoughby said.

After the shooting, several of his former neighbors said Ostrem was hostile. Some friends and family told him to snap out of it, that he was just seeing and hearing things that didn’t exist.

Willoughby remained one of the few people Ostrem would speak with. Eventually he even stopped speaking with his own father, she said.

“My job as his sister is to help him any way I can,” she said.

When Ostrem told her that he knew she was 150 years old, Willoughby went along, telling her brother that because she was his older sister, it was his responsibility to listen to her advice, including attending school and sporting events of his nephew and niece.

But shortly after his grandmother died, Ostrem quit his job and moved into the mountains. He lived alone and bow hunted and fished.

“He went off the grid. Nobody could find him. Not one person on the face of the Earth knew where he was,” Willoughby said.

She didn’t hear from Ostrem for three years and fears he was “alone with himself way too long.”

She told family members that they needed to have Ostrem committed to a hospital for a mental evaluation, but that wasn’t ever done and he was never diagnosed with a mental illness.

Last week, Ostrem walked away from his job as a metal fabricator without telling his boss what he was doing or whether he would return. He didn’t.

Willoughby said she doesn’t know what triggered her brother’s rampage because she hasn’t been able to speak with him.

But she believes something that would seem trivial to most people was twisted into something large in her brother’s mind.

When she saw pictures of her brother after his arrest in the Walmart shooting, Willoughby was shocked by his appearance.

“He lost so much weight,” she said. “When my brother spoke, I couldn’t recognize his voice. I can’t imagine what is going on in his mind right now.”

But her brother may finally get the psychological help he desperately needs, she said.

“He’s at the worst possible starting point.”