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Law enforcement and the courts rarely get involved in cases after they become voluntary, Buckner said. But law enforcement, family and others often talk to medical professionals to provide background on patients, he said.

"The legal system is not a good system to monitor someone with a high level of mental illness," Buckner said. "We have to figure out if we have the intensive inpatient and outpatient services to keep people safe. And I think the answer is, we are struggling."

Buckner said people who at one point appeared to be a threat to themselves or society are routinely discharged without committing any major crimes later.

"We could pull a thousand cases of people over the last 10 years of people who manifested no other criminal behavior, and that's not just Orange County residents," he said.

Questions of rights

Ann Akland, president of the Wake County affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said the system leans too heavily in favor of letting people out of treatment quickly. Akland said family members who have mentally ill relatives committed to treatment are often shocked and fearful when they find out that their relative will be released.

"I think our laws have just gone way overboard in trying to protect people's civil rights rather than protecting themselves," she said.

When Faucette told the Roses that Castillo had been released, he gave them information about the type of car Castillo might drive and told them that he would try to send deputies to patrol the neighborhood more often, Bonnie Rose said. Bonnie and Anna Rose said they asked about a restraining order, but Faucette told them they probably wouldn't be able to get one.

Someone from the sheriff's office might have approached Castillo, according to a letter that arrived at the Roses' home after the Orange High School shooting. Castillo wrote to Anna Rose that he knew her "parents are scared."

"The sheriff told me you went to the police department so I would not bother you again. I kept my word," he wrote.

In the letter, dated Aug. 27 and postmarked the day of the school shooting, Castillo also said he would "die in three days or so," and that he wouldn't "go after" Rose's little sister, who is enrolled at Orange High School.

Bonnie Rose said she couldn't understand why the system could not do more to protect her daughter and family.

"That's why I sent an e-mail asking people to pray," Bonnie Rose said. "I realized that was the only protection we had, is if God protected us."

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