A decision that could see an Oregon man who took his mother’s severed head to a supermarket released and sent to a community treatment facility has sparked outrage.
Joshua Webb, 43, has lived at Oregon State Hospital in Salem since pleading guilty except by reason of insanity to the murder of his mother, Tina Webb, 59, and the stabbing of a grocery store clerk in 2017.
Following the horrific act, psychiatrists for both the prosecution and defense diagnosed Webb with schizophrenia and psychosis at the time of the murder.
They said Webb had hallucinations, delusions and talked and heard voices in his head despite taking antipsychotic medication for a year.
But Dr. Karl Mobbs, a forensic psychiatrist involved in Webb’s treatment for the past 18 months, argued that he should be transferred from the state hospital to a 16-bed residential treatment center called Lifeways McNary Place.
Joshua Webb, 43, pleaded guilty except by reason of insanity to the murder of his mother, Tina Webb, 59, and the stabbing of a grocery store clerk in 2018.
He has lived at Oregon State Hospital in Salem ever since, but a doctor now says he is well enough to be transferred to a residential treatment facility.
He argued for Webb’s “conditional release” and told the Oregon Psychiatric Security Review Board on Wednesday that Webb now accepts the need to take medication. The Oregonian newspaper reports.
The doctor said he avoids conflicts with other patients and participates in classes and “therapeutic opportunities” more frequently than other patients.
Webb has done so well, Mobbs said, that he now lives on the lowest security level of the psychiatric hospital, with roughly the same restrictions he would find at Lifeways McNary Place, and has privileges that include working in a greenhouse on the hospital grounds.
“Mr. Webb has been doing well for a number of years,” she told the five-member board in a virtual hearing, as Webb sat beside her in a room at the state hospital.
But a woman who identified herself as the daughter of Mike Wagner, a supermarket employee whom Webb stabbed multiple times, opposed the transfer.
“I believe in the justice system and rehabilitation to a certain extent,” he said, according to the Oregonian.
‘However, given the violent and horrific crimes committed that day, I simply do not believe justice has been served.
“It’s terrifying to think that someone capable of committing such acts on that day could be released from any form of custody,” he added.
Webb took his mother’s head to the Harvest Market Thriftway, drank a soda, then attacked Wagner without warning.
Webb walked his mother, Tina, left toward the Harvest Market Thriftway, drank a soda and then attacked a grocery store worker without warning.
Oregon Department of Justice attorney Elisabeth Warner also urged the board to keep Webb at the state hospital, pointing to what she said was a documented lack of empathy and an apparent reluctance to apologize for his crimes.
But Mobbs said it’s difficult for Webb to talk about the horrific violence he committed on May 14, 2017.
“I’ve been able to talk to him about this privately and I see that he has empathy for what happened,” she said, although she admitted that Webb’s empathy “is probably at the lower end of normal.”
Still, he insisted that Webb was “extremely ill” when he acted violently “and that’s why he feels that on the other side of the table people would understand that it was his illness that led him to act in that way.”
However, Warner said she was not moved.
‘My concern is that removing Mr. Webb from the structure and familiarity of the hospital could lead to more harm than good for everyone involved in this case.’
Scott Healey, Clackamas County’s first assistant district attorney, also opposed the measure, calling Webb’s rampage extraordinary.
“This particular individual should not be released on any type of parole at this time,” he said.
Webb admitted to murdering his mother, dismembering her body and killing her dog.
Prosecutors said Webb had vision problems and lived at home so his parents could care for him.
In the weeks leading up to the brutal murder, her mother had confided in her that Webb “had been doing strange things lately” and was “losing her mind,” according to court documents.
The strange behavior only intensified, and Webb believed his girlfriend was trying to kill him and was injecting him with an unknown substance and that Fox TV “owned her.”
He also told his girlfriend that a black box in the garage contained a device that was recording him, and complained of feeling as if a squid was sucking on the back of his head two months before the murder.
On Mother’s Day 2017, surveillance footage from Harvest Market Thriftway showed Webb running into the store with his mother’s head and a large knife.
Passersby managed to detain the man, who was then 36 years old, until the police arrived at the scene.
Webb later admitted to murdering his mother, dismembering her body and killing his dog.
He also confessed to killing his dog and then stabbing Wagner, although he never gave a motive for the brutality.
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