Sen. Creigh Deeds Stabbed At Home, Son Dead

Virginia Pilot: Sen. Creigh Deeds Stabbed At Home, Son Dead

From staff and wire reports
BATH COUNTY

Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, is in a hospital after being stabbed this morning in his home, the Richmond Times-Dispatch is reporting. His son, Gus, died from a gunshot wound.

The events leading up to the shooting and stabbing were unclear, the newspaper was reporting. State Police said troopers arrived at Deeds' Bath County residence in Millboro around 7:25 a.m. and remain on scene as they investigate the incident.

Deeds was flown from the scene to the University of Virginia Medical Center. A hospital spokeswoman said that he is listed in critical condition.

Police are planning a press conference on the incident at noon.

Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe said in a statement this morning that he and his wife, Dorothy, are praying for Deeds and his family.

"This is a truly sad day for Virginia and for the many people who know Creigh as the fine public servant and friend he is," McAuliffe said. "We join people across the Commonwealth and country in wishing him a full recovery.”

Gov. Bob McDonnell also issued a statement about the incident that he referred to as an "altercation."

"Creigh Deeds is an exceptional and committed public servant who has always done what he believes is best for Virginia and who gives his all to public service," McDonnell said in the statement. "He cares deeply about Virginia, and the people of Virginia care deeply for him. I urge all Virginians today to join me in praying for a full and complete recovery for Creigh and for many more years of his public service to the Commonwealth. At this moment, our state unites in prayer for Creigh Deeds and his family.”

Deeds, a former Bath County prosecutor, was elected to the House of Delegates in 1991 and to the state Senate in 2001, in a special election after the death of Emily Couric. He ran for attorney general in 2005, but lost to Republican Bob McDonnell. The margin of victory was fewer than 400 votes out of nearly 2 million cast.

Deeds and McDonnell squared off again in 2009 in the race for governor after Deeds defeated Terry McAuliffe and Brian Moran in the Democratic Party. But Deeds lost badly that time.

Deeds, a rural Democrat who drafted a constitutional amendment guaranteeing Virginians' right to hunt, long enjoyed support from the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights advocates.

Deeds and his wife, Pam, divorced shortly after the 2009 campaign. He married Siobhan Gilbride Lomax of Lexington in 2012, according to the Richmond newspaper.

Virginian-Pilot writer Julian Walker and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Source URL (retrieved on 11/19/2013 - 11:33): http://hamptonroads.com/2013/11/report-sen-creigh-deeds-stabbed-home-son-dead

Washington Post: Police: Son Likely Stabbed Va. State Sen. Creigh Deeds, Shot Himself

By Ian Shapira, Ben Pershing and Rosalind S. Helderman,

Virginia state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath) was stabbed on Tuesday morning at his Bath County home, apparently by his 24-year-old son Gus Deeds, who then shot himself to death, according to law enforcement authorities.

The incident is being investigated as an attempted murder and suicide, Virginia State Police said.

The younger Deeds, who had withdrawn last month as a student at the College of William and Mary, underwent a mental health evaluation on Monday at a local hospital performed under an emergency custody order, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. But the son was released from Bath County Community Hospital because no psychiatric beds were available across a wide area of western Virginia, the paper reported.

“This was preventable,” said Sen. Richard Saslaw (D-Fairfax), adding that a “breakdown in the mental health system” led to a lack of beds and prevented medical authorities from holding the younger Deeds.

The elder Deeds was listed in fair condition Tuesday afternoon.

In a news conference, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said Bath County sheriff’s deputies and state police were called to the senator’s home on Vineyard Drive in the Millboro community around 7:25 a.m. She said the father and son had an “altercation,” but did not elaborate.

Police found Gus Deeds suffering from a gunshot wound and the senator stabbed several times in the head and upper torso, Geller said. The senator had walked down the hill of his residence to a nearby highway, where he was spotted and picked up by a cousin, police said. The two drove to the cousin’s house, where a 911 call was made, police said. Deeds, who has been alert enough to talk with investigators, was flown to the University of Virginia Health System Hospital, Geller said.

Back at the senator’s home, Gus Deeds could not be revived and died at the scene, police said.

Virginia State Police Sgt. Mike King told the Roanoke Times that Gus Deeds suffered an “apparent” self-inflicted gunshot wound. King told the Times that the father and son were the only ones in the house at the time.

Dennis Cropper, the executive Director of the Rockbridge County Community Services Board, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that Gus Deeds on Monday had undergone a mental health evaluation performed under an emergency custody order. Cropper told the paper that the younger Deeds was released from Bath County Community Hospital because no psychiatric beds were available across a wide area of western Virginia.

In a statement, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg said Gus Deeds had been enrolled as a student there since 2007 and withdrew last month. Geller said it was not immediately clear whether Gus Deeds lived at his father’s home. It was only known that he lived in Millboro, she said.

Creigh Deeds, 55, is best-known for his unsuccessful bid for governor in 2009. He bested two Democratic rivals – Brian Moran and Terry McAuliffe – to win the party nomination, but went on to lose the general election to Robert McDonnell by a 17-point margin.

That marked Deeds’s second loss to McDonnell: The two men also squared off in the 2005 attorney general race, which was so close it went to a recount. McDonnell prevailed in the end by 360 votes.

In the immediate aftermath of Deeds’s wounding, McDonnell released a statement: “In this tough and sad time, our thoughts and prayers are with the Deeds family. The news from this morning is utterly heartbreaking,” McDonnell said. “Creigh Deeds is an exceptional and committed public servant who has always done what he believes is best for Virginia and who gives his all to public service.”

Virginia Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe also said in a statement that he and his wife Dorothy were praying for Deeds and his family: “This is a truly sad day for Virginia and for the many people who know Creigh as the fine public servant and friend he is. We join people across the Commonwealth and country in wishing him a full recovery.”

By Tuesday afternoon, Deeds’s condition had been upgraded to fair, according to a spokeswoman for the University of Virginia medical center.

Deeds has served in the Senate since 2001, moving to that chamber after a decade in the House of Delegates. From 1987 to 1991, he was the commonwealth’s attorney for Bath County.

Fellow Democrats in the state Senate said they were stunned by the news about their low-key colleague.

“My only reaction is prayer,” said state Sen. Donald McEachin (D-Henrico). “I hope that folks who know Creigh, or who don’t know Creigh and are hearing about this, will join us in prayer. This is a horrible thing that has happened in the Deeds house.”

State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) called Deeds “someone you can always rely on to keep his word.”

“This is a terrible tragedy for Creigh’s family and for the commonwealth,” she said.

Virginia’s is a part-time legislature, and Deeds maintains a private law practice in Hot Springs, focused primarily on personal injury and wrongful death cases.

Creigh Deeds was born in Richmond and raised in Bath County, earning a bachelor’s degree from Concord College and a law degree from Wake Forest University. He and his first wife, Pam Deeds, divorced in 2010 after nearly three decades of marriage. Deeds married his current wife, Siobhan, in 2012.

Creigh Deeds also has three daughters — Amanda, Rebecca and Susannah.

Sarah E. King, 27, of Bodega Bay, Calif., has known the Deeds family all of her life. She grew up about 15 minutes from their home and attended William and Mary with Gus Deeds. She is good friends with Rebecca Deeds.

“I can’t even really process it. It’s really ground-shaking, not only for all the Deeds, but the entire community,” King said. “Everyone is just devastated.”

Heather Hannah, who attended elementary and high school with Gus Deeds, saw him two weeks ago at a nearby Pizza Hut. She said the younger Deeds seemed like he was in good spirits.

“I asked him if he was doing all right and he said he was good,” Hannah said.

Hannah described Gus Deeds as intelligent and happy-go-lucky. She said he played in the marching and concert bands at Bath County High School. He played the trombone and harmonica. Hannah remembers Gus Deeds as a talented musician. For talent shows, he performed bluegrass numbers with a group of other students.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the effort to seek the emergency mental health evaluation for Gus Deeds.

In Virginia, mental health authorities can hold individuals for four to six hours after a magistrate judge issues an emergency custody order. After that, a magistrate must issue a Temporary Detention Order to allow an individual to be held for 48 to 72 hours for further evaluation and treatment. But the order cannot be issued unless a facility like an inpatient hospital has a bed available.

In 2012, the Virginia Office of the Inspector General probed how often clinically necessary TDOs are not issued because no facility was available to accept the patient. Over a 90 day period, the IG found that 72 individuals were turned away despite the fact that they met the criteria to be involuntarily held for treatment. In another 273 cases, mental health professionals found a bed for a patient but only after the legally mandated 6-hour time window for converting an emergency hold into a temporary detention order had elapsed.

While representing just a small number of the 5,000 TDOs issue during the time period, the IG still warned about the dangers of turning any individual found in need of immediate detention away for lack of resources.

From his platform as a lawmaker, Creigh Deeds has spoken out about improving the state’s mental health system.

In the wake of the April 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech, Deeds said the tragedy had brought a fresh “urgency” to the cause of improving the state’s mental health system.

Deeds has long supported gun rights and was endorsed by the National Rifle Association in his 2005 race for attorney general against McDonnell. But after initially opposing efforts to close the gun show loophole, in 2008 Deeds shifted his position and offered a compromise version of legislation to close the loophole. The effort failed.

“I’ve never voted for legislation like this before, but I think it’s important that in the end, we respond in some fashion to the tragedy at Virginia Tech,” Deeds said at the time.

During the 2009 gubernatorial race, Deeds repeatedly attacked McDonnell’s economic plans by arguing that they would deprive the state budget of revenue and lead to cuts in mental health funding.

On the gubernatorial campaign trail against McDonnell, Creigh Deeds became known for his folksy charm. He’d often tweet the songs he was listening to on the road, including tunes by the Grateful Dead and The Band.

He bragged that he ran up more than 300,000 miles on his old Ford Explorer, even keeping it on the road after hitting a bear near his home, before finally abandoning it in 2009. Deeds’s informal style and occasional public awkwardness marked a stark contrast in that year’s Democratic primary race against McAuliffe, who was known for his flash and high-profile allies.

“I’ve been running uphill all my life,” Deeds said during the campaign.

After his loss in the gubernatorial race, Deeds went through a rough patch. State Sen. John S. Edwards (D-Roanoke) told The Washington Post that Deeds “seemed down in the dumps.”

The day McDonnell was inaugurated, Deeds tweeted that he was listening to the Rolling Stones song, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” The following month, his divorce was finalized.

“Things didn’t work out the way I wanted to, but I still got things to do,” Deeds said in an April 2010 interview. “Just because I lost an election doesn’t mean I was wrong about anything. I still have a role to play.”

He added: “Losing’s not fun, but it’s life, man. You have to take chances. Life is not for the weak. Helen Keller wrote, ‘Life is either a daring adventure or it’s nothing.’ ”

Anne Adams, publisher of the Recorder newspaper in nearby Monterey, Va., said the community is stunned by the news.

“He’s an integral part of this community and has been since his growing-up days. He is well known and well loved and well respected by everyone in the area,” said Adams, who has followed Deeds’s career for years.

Adams said Deeds fell into a funk following his 2009 loss in the governor’s race. But she said he had recently seemed to regain his footing. He had gotten remarried and had just returned from a trip to Ireland with his second wife.

“Recently, he’s probably been happier than I’d seen him in a long time,” she said. “He took a hit, as anyone would. But he’s got a great network of friends and family and he loves his work.”

Justin Jouvenal, Laura Vozzella, Jenna Johnson and Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report.

© The Washington Post Company

Yeah, at first I thought it was a home invasion. But thinking about it I knew it had to be some kind of domestic.

WTKR: William & Mary Staff Shocked By Alleged Attack By Gus Deeds

Posted on: 11:49 pm, November 19, 2013, by Doris Taylor, updated on: 08:20am, November 20, 2013

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If Gus Deeds was approaching a mental health crises, it wasn`t apparent to people who knew him at William & Mary.

“If we had been having this conversation two days ago, I would have said that Gus Deeds would have been, like his mind-set would be a good thing for us to think about. He wasn’t concerned what other people thought of him. He was nice to everyone he met,” says Christian Sassano.

According to the college, Deeds had been a William and Mary student off and on since 2007, but withdrew in October.
The reason is unclear, but certainly not the action of the affable, dedicated student described by his professors
“He was very forthcoming and very personable. He told me about his faith. He was very religious,” says professor Max Katz.

He was also a regular in the music library.

But something happened. Police say Gus Deeds had moved back to his father`s home in Bath County. The Richmond Times Dispatch reported this afternoon that Gus Deeds was taken in for a mental evaluation Monday, but was released because there was no bed available for him. The county mental health director contacted by NewsChannel 3 refused to confirm that report, but did say even if Deeds had been brought in under a so-called emergency custody order, he could not have been held more than six hours anyway.

The news of what happened down the dirt road in Bath County traveled quickly across the Williamsburg campus Tuesday morning.

State Police say they don’t know what led Gus Deeds to apparently attack his father this morning. But they said Senator Deeds wandered from his home, bleeding after the attack and was picked up by a cousin who got him the medical care that may have saved his life.

Yeah, I had a friend who could only be described as a happy go lucky, fella. A few hours after he was seen clowning around and cracking jokes, he went up to his apartment, sealed off the doors w/towels and turned on the gas.

Ya never know...

Carl

I know of a lot of people in my life that committed suicide or was involved in a murder suicide.

You are so right. Ya never know...