RALEIGH - The month before Stephen Ryan Gibson led state troopers on a 70-mile car chase that ended Tuesday in a fatal hail of bullets, his father went to a Wake County magistrate to ask that his son be involuntarily committed to a mental hospital.

Gibson's psychiatric files, released to his family after his death, raise questions about whether the troubled 23-year-old's downward spiral could have been prevented if the agencies charged with his care had treated him more aggressively.

Such concerns are shared by other families whose loved ones have struggled to negotiate North Carolina's strained mental health system, though individual outcomes rarely make headlines.

Uninsured and unable to afford private care, Gibson drifted through gaps that have long existed but have grown wider since legislators set out to reform mental health with a prescription for privatization.

Without treatment, Gibson's family says, his paranoia and anger deepened. He claimed to see ghosts in his home.

Tuesday morning, a young man with no criminal record stole a rental car, robbed a convenience store at gunpoint and lost his life while putting others at risk.

"What happened with this young man is symptomatic of a system crumbling apart," said Frank Edwards, president of the Wake County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. "It's tragic. People are falling through the cracks. But it seems to take either a fatality or a lawsuit for the powers that be to pay attention."

Family members say Gibson kept to himself and had few friends. Since he was s boy, he had absorbed knowledge like a sponge, voraciously consuming books on human anatomy, religion, survival skills and fast cars. He was about 6 feet tall, but so thin and frail an uncle said he looked as if a hug might might break a bone.

With his parents divorced, he lived with his mother in Charlotte, graduating from East Mecklenburg High School. He moved to Raleigh to live with his father and enroll at Wake Technical Community College, which offered health sciences classes that piqued his interest.

Albert Gibson says his son soon started having problems. He dropped out of college and went to work in a string of low-wage fast-food jobs.

On April 12, in the same week a mentally ill student at Virginia Tech killed 32 classmates and teachers before killing himself, Albert Gibson sought help after learning that his son had sought to buy a handgun. The father went to the magistrate's office with concerns that his son was going into rages, talking to himself and acting paranoid that his family was out to get him.

Assessed by county

The following morning, Raleigh police arrived at the Gibson home near downtown Raleigh and took Stephen Gibson for an evaluation at Wake's Crisis and Assessment Service, a county-run mental health facility on Falstaff Road, behind WakeMed hospital.

An emergency services clinician interviewed Gibson about 12:30 p.m. and determined he was probably suffering from a psychotic disorder, according to his evaluation report.

Psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, are treatable with antipsychotic drugs and psychotherapy.

Described as "very bright; has job skills," Gibson was observed talking to himself. During the interview he said he had no plan to commit suicide or murder, a key measure used to determine whether a patient should be committed against his will. And he denied having a gun, saying that he had only gotten pistol permits because he enjoyed collecting official documents and certificates.

But as the staff probed deeper during his long evaluation, the file says he seemed paranoid, claiming that his father owed him $1,200 for landscaping work and that family members had accused him of damaging his father's car, which he denied. He was agitated, making references to "hurting people" if he didn't get the money.

Next page >

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.