On October 15, 1999, Wanda Harrington, 47, was shot in the temple while she slept on the living room couch in her Detroit home. Her three-year-old son Brian, who was playing nearby, was also shot and killed. Paul Harrington, Wanda’s husband and a former Detroit police officer, called 911 after the killings, waited on his porch, surrendered without incident, and confessed to the murders, saying the same thing had happened in 1975 and they should have put him away then.

Paul Harrington had a documented history of severe mental illness, including post-traumatic stress disorder from his Vietnam service, major depression, psychosis, prior psychiatric treatment and prescribed medications; defense attorneys said he had run out of medication before the killings. The jury rejected an insanity defense after a little over an hour of deliberations and found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, a conviction that carries life in prison without parole. Family members of Wanda said they were relieved he would not be able to harm anyone else.

Does anyone have memories of the Harrington family or information about how mental health and criminal-justice interactions were handled in Detroit in the 1990s?