A 27-year-old Kennesaw man diagnosed with schizophrenia was committed to a state mental hospital Monday after a jury found him not guilty of murdering his mother by reason of insanity.
Justin Detrell Wilburn stabbed his mother, Joann Wilburn, 120 times and cut her another 60 times in her Powder Springs home on Feb. 4, 2010. He then drove away from the house and crashed his vehicle into a fire hydrant on Barrett Parkway, where passersby saw him running down the side of the road covered in blood.
Wilburn's defense attorney, Maddox Kilgore, said his client heard his mother say she was going to kill him that morning, almost certainly in jest, and suffered a delusion that his life was in danger. Kilgore said his client's mother was truly his only friend in the world, which made the slaying all the more tragic. When Wilburn is medicated, as he has been for the past year and a half, he's "a lamb," Kilgore said.
"But a byproduct of schizophrenia is that the patient doesn't really believe they are that sick," Kilgore said. "Compliance with taking their medication is often an issue with these type of mental diseases, schizophrenia in particular."
The onset of Wilburn's schizophrenia occurred at age 15, when he began hearing voices and imagining his schoolmates at Osborne High School were whispering about him, Kilgore said.
Wilburn's brother, who is in the Marine Corps, testified at trial that his brother was very sick and the slaying wouldn't have happened if Wilburn wasn't so severely mentally ill. Former Georgia Department of Human Resources psychologist, Dr. Kevin Richards, also testified for the defense that Justin was suffering under an intense delusional compulsion that overmastered his will.
Cobb County Superior Court Judge George Kreeger is scheduled to formally order that Wilburn be committed to a state mental hospital on Monday. The only way he could be released is if he one day convinces the staff of the hospital that he is mentally competent, and then petition the court for release.
"Given the circumstances, that would be a very tough hill to climb," Kilgore said. "He's never going to be well."
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