Murder-Arsonist throws down arms, arrested

[DocM]

Cops told him to throw down his arms & things went downhill from there :/

Link....

KIRKSVILLE, Mo. (AP) ? Neighbors of a Missouri man accused of killing a man, dismembering the body and tossing the victim?s arms at bystanders, said the scene left them with nightmares and was ?like something out of a horror movie.?

Paul R. Potter, 49, of Kirksville, is also accused of setting fires to conceal the crime. He was charged Monday in Adair County with second-degree murder, arson and tampering with a motor vehicle and is being held on $1 million bond. Kevin Locke, the public defender assigned to represent Potter, did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Police officers responding to a call of a vehicle fire Sunday arrived at the housing development in Kirksville, about 200 miles northwest of St. Louis, and saw Potter ?throw two objects, later identified as human arms, towards the witnesses,? according to a probable cause statement.

Neighbor Jerry Stahl said he was outside Potter?s apartment when Potter hurled the victim?s arms.

?They hit me. I had blood on me and I?ve had nightmares since,? Stahl told The Kirksville Daily Express. ?I couldn?t sleep Sunday. I still cry about it. It?s horrific.?

Martina Mudd, another neighbor, said she was awakened late Sunday by a car horn going off. She went outside to see what was going on and saw firefighters trying to put out a vehicle fire. She then saw police officers running toward another apartment where Potter was throwing things.

Mudd said police arrested Potter and as she moved closer to the objects Potter had thrown she saw what they were.

?That?s when I noticed the object he threw were arms,? Mudd said. ?It was awful. It was like something out of a horror movie, only it was real.?

Authorities have not released the victim?s name because relatives were being notified.

The Missouri Department of Corrections said Potter was convicted of sale of a controlled substance in 1995 in Linn County and was discharged from probation in 2009.

Marlene Hamman said it?s difficult to believe Potter is accused of murder and said several neighbors ?are still in shock over it.? ?That wasn?t the Paul we knew,? she said.

Neighbors described Potter as friendly and as someone who would give and borrow cigarettes and had also given $2 to a neighbor as a birthday gift.

?(Potter) was always doing nice things, he was very talkative, and he had a big laugh you could hear through all the apartments,? Mudd said. ?No one would guess he?d do this, but anyone could snap. You never know about people.?

[Growled Member]

Man, that's just sick. Hang him high.

[Dot Matrix]

Well, you know what we need to do. Ban hack saws. They're too dangerous for people to have.

[Japlabot]

He will plead in insanity for this. Nobody in their right mind would do something like this.

It saddens me that he has already been through the system for a prior conviction and at that time, he was not picked up on his mental condition and given treatment for it, otherwise this probably wouldn't have happened if he had been Psych tested as being crazy and given meds.

[DocM]

Problem: under the current laws it's very difficult to involuntarily hospitalize a mental patient, much less force them to take meds, until some third party they've attacked is either dead or damed close to it. This is where most all of these spree killers start out.

[Raa]

Bath salts? :s

[Japlabot]

Problem: under the current laws it's very difficult to involuntarily hospitalize a mental patient, much less force them to take meds, until some third party they've attacked is either dead or damed close to it. This is where most all of these spree killers start out.

I mean in the prison system, never been in prison myself but my understanding is that they are simply locked up with the ideation that only time, hardening up & deterrent in not wanting to be there is enough to make "rehabilitate" on their own accord and 'hopefully' it would have worked by the time they get out. Are they offered full support programs, mental health treatments & access to psychologists/psychiatrists when they are in prison, even if they have not been committed under any mental health issue?

Can their mental health be assessed and monitored as a normal course of action to see if they have any mental health issues, and then VOLUNTARILY given treatment options for it.

From his behaviours describing how he was before this, from the very little bit of information given, it would appear that he was already not quite right (and let's face it, someone who does this kind of crime has serious issues), but it might not have been diagnosed, if he was diagnosed, he might have chosen to voluntarily take treatment before it got to this point of dismembering victims and throwing their arms at people.

[Shiranui]

He was armed and dangerous; however, his victim was unarmed.