Son’s mental illness brings heartache, hope
Mother tries to cope as disorder, drugs lead to stints in jail, hospital
Six months had passed since Fort Bend County sheriff’s officers arrested 22-year-old Warren Muldrow on a felony charge of terroristic threat. He had called 911 from his group home, threatening to kill any police officer who came to get him.
Now Warren’s mother, 54-year-old Shelia Muldrow, faced a choice. Warren would be meeting with his attorney later in the evening. Should she be there or let him take responsibility for what he’d done?
It wasn’t Warren’s first time through the criminal justice system. Warren, bipolar and drugabusing, had been in and out of jails and hospitals so many times that Shelia could no longer keep count.
The mother held out hope that this case might be the one in which he would be forced to get treatment, but so far his rollercoaster life had continued. He’d been admitted into an emergency room in March and detained by police again last weekend. The
cycle could feel never-ending.
“What more does he have to do to get help?” Shelia had asked after one of his court hearings, tears in her eyes.
Shelia longed for Warren to be ordered into inpatient care, where he could clear his head, figure out a life plan.
“He’s not a terrorist at all,” she said Wednesday. “He’s not someone that intentionally wants to hurt someone. But the combination of his illness and the drug use makes him appear that way.”
Would this be the time he finally got help? The decision wouldn’t be hers to make.
As the afternoon heat dissolved into a crisp evening, fading light shone through the paned windows where Shelia sat in her two-story brick home in northwest Harris county. She had raised Warren here until he turned 14, when a confrontation one Super Bowl Sunday made her realize she couldn’t handle him anymore.
Memories of his childhood flowed. Shelia recalled taking him to a psychiatrist’s office at age 3, worried that her divorce from his father might be affecting him adversely. (The doctor said it wasn’t.) She recalled seeking help for him again at age 7, after he erupted in anger on vacation in Disney World. (He went to talk therapy, but it didn’t seem to help.)
And she remembered Warren around age 11 on the basketball court, when, if his team lost the game, he lost control. (He took Zoloft for a short time.)
One day, Warren asked his mother about his racing heart and anxious feelings. It occurred to her then: Something was different about her child. But she couldn’t quite identify the problem. Perhaps he had anger issues. Perhaps they would pass.
“I didn’t realize at the time that his issues had to deal with a mental illness,” she said.
If Warren didn’t get to eat at the restaurant he wanted, he might throw a tantrum. Once, so maddened by a “no” from his mother, he threw his door open with such force that the door knob punctured the drywall behind it. The mood swings felt severe. The anger in the house grew. Shelia learned of Warren’s alleged 911 police threat through the news. The sheriff’s office sent out a media release. Her niece saw the story on TV, and the update made its way to Shelia’s mother, who called her
Shelia has been working recently on lessening the inner turmoil that phone calls incite. Just as the blares of an ambulance once sent her into a fit of worry — could Warren be hurt? — the rings of her cellphone fill her with fear. She tries to remind herself the call could bring good news, rather than wonder if it will be “the dreaded call,” as she described it, “which is your child is dead.”
Unknown numbers are hardest to pick up. But there are also the calls from Warren’s father, which send her “through the roof,” not knowing what will be said. And there are rings from Warren, too, sometimes high from synthetic marijuana or, like last weekend, dialing from jail.
She’s saved voicemails Warren has left, talking rapidly, nonsensically. Those still hurt to listen to, making her wish she knew what to do to ease his pain. A heart emoji appears in her phone next to his name.
“He obviously needs help; he cries for help,” she said. “And he can’t get it.”
A part of Shelia wished he had remained in jail. Warren’s father had posted his bond in February after his threatening 911 call, but knowing in the months before that Warren wasn’t on the streets, that he would have food and a bed, had brought Shelia a certain comfort.
When Warren was out, she knew that anything could happen.
Roll call began just past 10 a.m. Thursday in Associate Judge Stuti Patel’s second-floor courtroom. At the sound of Warren’s name, defense attorney Valerie Waddell spoke clearly from her place on the left of the room, projecting over Warren’s response from the back pew on the far right.
“Present with counsel, your honor,” said Waddell, a privately retained attorney, clad in a modest, pale blue dress, with a dark jacket, tights and heels. Her hair, free with brown and yellow curls when she met with Warren and his dad the night before, had been pulled tight into a bun atop her head.
Arriving early as she usually does to beat the traffic, Waddell had intercepted the prosecutor in Warren’s case on his way into the Fort Bend County justice center to hash out a plea agreement.
The night before, Warren had decided to pursue probation, rather than go to trial. (His mother hadn’t gone to the meeting, believing the decision his to make.)
In court, Warren remained in the back, expressionless in a light purple button-down and black dress pants. The room smelled as crowded places do.
At 10:15 a.m., with ample time to confer before his case would be called, Waddell motioned Warren into the hall. She told him about meeting with the prosecutor that morning.
The pair later went through the paperwork for him to enter a guilty plea and then returned to wait. The clocked ticked past 11 a.m., past 11:30 a.m. Other defendants entered their pleas, other hearings were re-set. With only five other people remaining in the public court room benches, Patel called Warren forward just before noon.
The judge’s questions came in steady, practiced sucession. Did the attorney have concerns about his mental health affecting his decision that morning? “No ma’am.” (At Waddell’s request, a county specialist had determined Warren competent to stand trial.) Did Warren agree that the court should have no concern? “Yes ma’am.”
Warren spoke into the microphone before him, bending his tall, muscular frame down toward it. He entered his plea: “Guilty.” Asked why, he explained that he needed to take his medicine, he needed to stay sober and, yes, he had committed the crime.
Patel ordered three years of deferred adjudication probation. If completed successfully, Warren’s record would later be sealed. If Warren broke the terms, he could face two to 10 years in prison.
“Do you think you could come see me in three years and tell me that you’re done?” Patel asked.
“Correct,” said Warren, with his dad looking on, arms crossed, leg shaking.
Warren called his mother later. She wished she could have talked longer with her son, whom she planned to spend Mother’s Day without. As in the years before, she couldn’t know if he would show up for festivities high or sober.
The future remained up to him.