Man who knifed parents acquitted

A Pend Oreille County man was insane when he slashed his mother’s throat and stabbed his father, a judge ruled Thursday.

Superior Court Judge Al Nielson acquitted Bryan A. Lang, 25, of one count of first-degree assault and confined him to Eastern State Hospital in Medical Lake for treatment.

Lang will remain under the control of the mental hospital and the Pend Oreille County Superior Court for the rest of his life.

Nielson based his ruling on the opinion of two Eastern State Hospital doctors that Lang probably didn’t know the difference between right and wrong when he knifed his parents at their Fertile Valley home, near the Spokane County line.

Deputy Prosecutor Tony Koures acquiesced to court-appointed defense attorney Tim Trageser’s motion to acquit Lang by reason of insanity.

Lang had been charged with two counts of first-degree assault and, as an alternative to the assault charge regarding his mother, with one count of attempted second-degree murder. On Thursday, though, Koures dropped the attempted-murder charge.

Koures also dropped the charge that Lang assaulted his father, Steven Lang. The elder Lang told authorities he might have been stabbed in the side accidentally. He scuffled with his son when his wife, Tina, called for help.

Steven and Tina Lang both were hospitalized, but neither of their wounds was life-threatening.

The charges that were dropped had no effect on Bryan Lang’s lifetime mental-health commitment. Lang may be released from the mental hospital, but never from supervision.

Eastern State psychologist Laurine Marcinkowski and psychiatrist J.R. Henry found Lang suffers from chronic paranoid schizophrenia as well as personality disorders and abuse of alcohol, marijuana and methamphetamine.

Citing interviews with Lang, his parents and Lang’s ex-girlfriend, Henry and Marcinkowski concluded that Lang felt he was in a life-or-death situation when he attacked his parents.

The doctors said Tina Lang told them her son hadn’t seemed upset, but he had been pacing back and forth and twisting a potato sack while they worked together in the kitchen. She said she asked her son what he was doing and “the next thing she knew, she felt something and then saw blood spray from her neck,” according to Marcinkowski and Henry.

They said Steven Lang told them that, while he struggled with his son, Bryan Lang said, “You can’t tell me you don’t hear the voices, Dad.”

Tina Lang reportedly said her son calmly stated, after stabbing Steven Lang, “I had better leave now.”

Henry and Marcinkowski said Bryan Lang described a history of strife with his parents and of suspecting them and other relatives of various crimes. He also told the doctors about hearing voices, which he called “whispers,” and seeing images of people telling him what to do.

Lang reportedly said that, just before he attacked his parents, he saw and heard people telling him to “move” and to “kill” and asking him, “Would you rather kill or be killed?” He said one of the figures assured him, “It is OK.”

According to the Eastern State Hospital sanity report, Lang claimed to have resisted the voices before one of them “took my body and mind over” and he decided he was in a “life-or-death” struggle with his parents.

Henry and Marcinkowski said Lang told them he drank two beers and smoked two pipe “bowls” of marijuana on the day he attacked his parents. But voluntary intoxication doesn’t defeat an insanity defense based on chronic mental problems.