believes rage was caused by medication
06:57 PM PST on Tuesday, February 21, 2006
By ROBERT MAK / KING 5 News
YELM, Wash. - Was it a case of domestic violence or the result of a medical reaction? It's a tough case in Thurston County. Now prosecutors are keeping two great-grandparents from seeing each other as they try to sort through what really was behind an attack last October.
The Attwoods had health problems and finances were tight, but they had great family support, two grown daughters in town, plenty of grandkids and great-grandkids, too.
They've been married sixty years and never thought they'd find themselves in their situation today. Eric and Margaret Attwood gave up their condo. Their kids and grandkids pitched in to remodel a small home. They planned to spend their golden years living right next door to one of their daughters.
"It was a lovely condominium, but it was nice to think that mom and dad would have a house," said their daughter, Jennifer Rapuzzi.
"We just wanted to be able to take care of them, as they got older," said Hilary Carlson, another daughter. 82-year-old Eric Attwood, who already had been through open-heart surgery, cancer, double hernias and blood clots, started getting depressed.
"He lost his enthusiasm for doing things," said Margaret Attwood.
Concerned, the family took him to a doctor who prescribed an anti-depressant. The family says the drug made him obsessive and agitated.
Twelve days later, the unthinkable happened as the couple went to bed.
"I opened my eyes and the knife was already coming down� I couldn't believe it� it was already in," said Margaret. "I put my hands up and I got hold of his hands, and I pulled it out, you see."
Margaret Attwood recovered from the stab wound to her neck and police charged her husband with attempted first-degree murder.
Prosecutors are handling this as a domestic violence case, but the 79-year-old grandmother says there was no argument in six decades and they've never gone to bed angry:
"His face was just a blank, it was just like a zombie. I can't really explain it to you, but there was nothing there," she said.
Eric Attwood has now spent five months away � between jail and a mental hospital undergoing evaluation. And a restraining order keeps his wife from even seeing him.
The case illustrates the tough calls prosecutors often face. They've seen many victims of domestic violence in denial, and yet, here's a family convinced it's not domestic violence but a medical issue.
"I just want to see him, that's all. I want to tell him that I love him, you know. That's all I want to do," said Margaret. "I know it's got to take its course� He's not violent, he really is not violent, and he's not a criminal, and he's being treated like a criminal, and it hurts me."
The family believes that Attwood had a particularly bad reaction to the drug Wellbutrin, which lists as its possible side effects agitation and anxiety.
Most antidepressants come with a warning that patients should be monitored for suicidal thoughts or actions. But such severe reactions are considered relatively rare and it's now up to the prosecutor to weigh the evidence and decide whether to go forward with charges.
The prosecutor says he's waiting for results of that 3-month mental evaluation and could not comment on an ongoing case.
M Margaret Attwood says this past holiday was their first Christmas ever apart and she hopes that prosecutors will let her at least visit her husband in jail.
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Couple allowed to reunite after yearlong nightmare
By Christian Hill
The Olympian
Eric and Margaret Attwood walked hand-in-hand out of Thurston County Superior Court on Tuesday, taking the first steps toward normalcy since an act of violence 11 months ago rocked their 60-year union.
A judge decided that Eric Attwood, 83, could return home for the first time since his arrest for stabbing his wife in the neck as she slept on the morning of Oct. 3.
Last month, a judge found Attwood not guilty by reason of insanity after agreeing his crime was motivated by an adverse reaction to the prescription antidepressant Wellbutrin.
In the intervening months, Attwood spent time at Western State Hospital, and the health of both spouses took a turn for the worse as they endured their first time apart from one another, said Hilary Carlson, their daughter.
On Tuesday, with her husband close by her side during an interview with a television news station, Margaret Attwood savored their reunion.
"I feel so much better," she said outside the courtroom. "It's been a long year for us, but he's still my husband and I love him very much."
"I think we've known for the last several months that this day would come," added Eric Attwood, choked with emotion.
During a brief hearing, Attwood reassured Judge Richard Strophy that he would comply with all court-ordered conditions, including receiving treatment and taking all of his prescribed medications.
His attorney, Jeffery Robinson, said last month that Attwood was on a different antidepressant and has been prescribed antipsychotics.
"I think you're looking at the real Eric Attwood at this point," Robinson told Strophy, as his client stood next to him dressed in a blue suit jacket and gray pants.
Attwood has been staying at an adult family home since his release in late June from Western State Hospital in Steilacoom, where he underwent psychological evaluation.
The state Department of Corrections recommended to the court that Attwood be allowed to return home.
The couple had lived in their own house on their daughter's 20-acre parcel in Yelm. They will stay with her until they can be sure he can return to the home where he nearly killed his wife.
Margaret Attwood has said she fought to survive that morning to ensure people would know something had gone terribly wrong in his mind, that her attacker wasn't the man she'd loved for 60 years.
Carlson called her mother a hero.
"She fought to validate my dad's life," Carlson said.
The family was celebrating Tuesday afternoon.
"My dad's walking around on our property now," she said. "It's a glorious day."
Christian Hill writes for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-754-5427 or at [email protected].