A Chester County judge ordered Richard Greist released from Norristown State Hospital

Today Pennsylvania

WEST CHESTER — A common pleas judge has ordered Richard Greist, the man who killed his wife and their unborn child in a mental rage more than four decades ago, to be released from Norristown State Hospital, where he had been incarcerated since 1981.

Judge Edward Griffith, in a one-page order signed Monday night, said Greist will be allowed to leave the hospital immediately and go live with his wife, Frances Greist, at her home in Norristown. On Tuesday morning, Greist left the hospital, where he had spent most of his adult life in a locked forensics unit, and was at her home, sources said.

The decision may have come as a surprise because of its speed — a status hearing was only held Monday to learn what, if any, plans are for supervising Greist if he is discharged — but Griffith has made it clear in recent months that ready to order release.

At Monday’s hearing, both the psychiatrist who attended Greist in Norristown, Dr. Edgar Martinez, and the staff psychiatrist, Dr. Ira Brenner, testified that the psychosis he suffered in 1978 led to the violent deaths of his wife, Janice Greist, and his unborn child. , the stabbing of his daughter in the eye and the assault on his grandmother at their home in East Coventry had long since subsided and that he was no longer a danger to himself or the wider community

It is this standard — an available diagnosis of serious mental illness and a danger to society — that allows the court to order an involuntary referral to a psychiatric hospital. It was only recently that doctors in Norristown concluded that his psychosis was in remission and that he suffered only from a non-committal personality disorder.

Because he was found not guilty of manslaughter by reason of insanity at trial in 1980, Greist, 71, will never have to serve time in prison for the deaths of his wife and child or the attacks on his daughter and grandmother.

Efforts to release Greist from Norristown have been resisted by the Chester County District Attorney’s Office, mainly on the grounds that there is no guarantee he won’t decompensate mentally and emotionally and suffer another mental breakdown when he returns to the community. without restrictions.

Unforeseen stressors – domestic problems with the wife, problems with the neighbor, social approval, etc. – could re-trigger a psychotic breakdown and, once confronted, would cause Greist to spiral out of control, prosecutor Griffith argued. This position was limited by the opinion of the two psychiatrists who treated Greist and Griffith’s desire to find a way to discharge him.

Attorneys appearing on Greist’s behalf thanked the judge for his decision, and prosecutors said they were considering an appeal.

“It’s kind of surreal,” said Marita Hutchinson, a Westtown attorney who was court-appointed years ago to represent Greist at the annual bond hearing. “But like the court, I rely on the testimony of the medical examiner who said there was a consensus that he was no longer a danger to himself or others. I believe that the judge’s decision was correct.”

Asked if she had spoken to Greist about the order, Hutchinson said she had and that he had mixed feelings about Griffith’s decision. “He said he was grateful to his psychiatrists and the medical care they gave him and their testimony at the hearing.

“But even though it’s a happy accident, he still lives with the guilt every day for the death of his wife, his unborn child and the injuries to his daughter and grandmother,” she said.

Michael van der Veen, a Philadelphia defense attorney whom Greist hired earlier this year as his personal attorney, said he was “pleased” with the decision.

“It’s important for the mental health community to know that people can come back into society” after they’ve had a mental breakdown and become committed, and that there is a “light at the end of the tunnel” for them.

“It’s been a very long tunnel for Mr. Greist,” said van der Ven, who represented former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial last year. “He has been a model inmate at Norristown State Hospital and has shown in many ways that he is more than ready to return to the community.

“He should not have been in prison for 44 years,” van der Ven added. “He had a mental disorder that had been in remission for decades and was in no way a danger to society. If Mr. Greist had been convicted of a crime, he would have been out of prison by now.”

District Attorney Deb Ryan, on the other hand, released the following statement after reading the order.

“We are very disappointed with the judge’s decision in this matter,” the statement said. “Mr. Greist committed one of the most brutal and gruesome murders in our nation’s history, and his release — despite our strong objections — is deeply troubling. During the four decades that Mr. Greist was at Norristown State Hospital, our the office was adamant that he should not be released. We are considering our appeal options.”

However, any appeal will take years to be heard in court. In the meantime, Griffith will decide whether to delay the dismissal order and send Greist back to Norristown.

In addition to the release, Griffith ordered that Greist continue weekly psychiatric sessions with Brenner for six months, with detailed reports sent to the court and prosecutors, and that he return to court for a status hearing on January 5, 2023.

He is also banned from having any contact with his two daughters – Angela and Beth Ann – both of whom live in the area.

Last year, Griffith ordered Norristown officials to begin developing a plan that could eventually lead to his release from prison, possibly to a “degraded” or halfway house, though he did not specifically say when Greist would be discharged. It was the first time the judge hearing Greist’s case had given him hope that he could be freed from Norristown, something he had fought for for more than two dozen years.

However, no such plan was developed. Andrea Cardamon, the DA’s chief of staff, who argued the office’s position Monday, said the failure was blamed on Greist’s unwillingness to work with the hospital to find a solution. Hutchinson, however, said behavioral agencies in Chester and Montgomery counties can’t agree on who should provide shelter services and where.

One of the most notorious crimes in the region

Although his name and the circumstances of his case have largely faded from the public imagination over the years, Greist was at one point in time one of the region’s most notorious killers.

On May 10, 1978, Greist, a 27-year-old assistant at the former Pennhurst State Hospital, flew into a mental rage and stabbed his wife, Janice, to death with a screwdriver in the second-floor bedroom of their East Coventry country home. He then cut her body open, killed and maimed their unborn son, stabbed daughter Beth Ann in the eye and attacked his grandmother with a butcher knife.

In a non-jury trial in July and August 1980, Greist was found not guilty by reason of insanity by the late Common Pleas Judge Thomas Peet after a defense expert testified that he suffered from psychosis during the attacks and was legally unable to distinguish between right and wrong . The verdict was extremely controversial at the time and was a precursor to a similar finding for the would-be assassin of President Ronald Reagan.

However, in 1981 he was forcibly committed to Norristown Hospital. Under the state’s mental health law, a judge is asked each year to determine whether Greist still suffers from a serious mental disability that makes him a “clear and present danger to himself and others” and whether he should remain in such a facility for the next 365 days.

In recent years, judges have gradually increased the level of off-site privileges Greist has been allowed to enjoy, supervised and unsupervised. In 2019, for example, Griffith allowed Greist to have one 48-hour pass every three months from the hospital. Greist was previously allowed 12 hours of unsupervised off-site travel each month, plus three 24-hour passes each quarter. The new privilege meant Greist would be able to spend a total of 32 days outside the Norristown facility on his own.

The case spans the 40-plus years since the gruesome murder, which was captured by Pottstown Mercury photographer Tom Kelly III, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his work in news. But it obviously rubbed off on some of the participants.

On Monday, when Cardamom began questioning Brenner about Greist’s feelings about the events of May 1978 and whether he believed he had “killed” his wife and child, and Hutchinson argued that was a legal distinction in which Greist was acquitted, Griffith stopped in many ways.

“I’m not going to let you go down that road,” the judge said. “I had this case for many years. I know all about it. I went through it over and over.’

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