A PLEA FOR CHANGE
Steichen brothers’ grieving mother hopes for improvement in mental health care system
“This is my 60th birthday and what I want for my birthday is change to our health care system. What I want for my birthday is change to our mental health care system. What I want for my birthday is no mother ever anywhere to ever feel the way that I am going to feel every day for the rest of my life.”
— Beverley Steichen
Saturday was Beverley Steichen’s 60th birthday. Her son Aaron was planning on taking her to a bonfire at the beach to celebrate. Less than a week before her birthday, Aaron was fatally stabbed in his mom’s kitchen. Aaron’s brother Jacob, who had been suffering severe psychosis from his schizophrenia for more than a month, is accused in the fatal stabbing.
On Saturday, the Steichen family and their friends gathered in the Arcata Plaza to share Aaron and Jacob’s stories and raise awareness about how the dual tragedy that struck their family could have been avoided.
“I’m not at the birthday feast that my son Aaron was planning for me with his brother and sister,” Beverley said. “This is my 60th birthday and what I want for my birthday is change to our health care system. What I want for my birthday is change to our mental health care system. What I want for my birthday is no mother ever anywhere to ever feel the way that I am going to feel every day for the rest of my life.”
Beginning in July, the family tried desperately to find help, and though the people in the system were “very kind and very humane” and agreed Jacob was “gravely disabled,” the swift mental health intervention everyone agreed Jacob needed never materialized, she said.
“Jacob eventually locked himself into his room, totally fearing the others in the family or invaders from outside of the family were a real and present danger to him,” Beverley said. “He was no longer the grounded
Jacob of our common reality, but was a frightened, paranoid victim of a mental illness in a culture where health is not considered a basic right.”
He didn’t come out of the bedroom for about a month before the murder Sept. 20, Beverley said. During that time, the family tried to get Jacob help, but the only agency available to help the family was the Arcata Police Department, which they called multiple times to no real avail.
Police officers came to the house multiple times, which proved to be traumatic for Jacob in and of itself, but they would soon leave, saying there was nothing they could do, Beverley said.
“We were forbidden to break down the door or to force Jake by any means by our will and against his will,” Beverley said. “We were told to do this would be committing felony offenses for which we could be charged. We were told to trust the system. It takes time. We were told the case is building. We were told it’s best to let it escalate.”
Allowing the situation to escalate led to the death of a central member of the Steichen family, and when Beverley spoke to a therapist evaluating Jacob’s competency, she said she was told he didn’t understand he had stabbed and killed his brother.
If the authorities had made the same effort to get Jacob out after the stabbing as they had when the family had initially called, Beverley said her “firstborn son would be alive” and her son “Jake would be getting the help he needed instead of being a felon who just murdered his brother.”