MONROE – Bryan Hetherwick gently lifted his grandson out of his car seat.
He hugged and kissed him. He told Brennan, 5, he loved him.
Then he pulled out a gun and shot Brennan. Yelling, “It’s for the best! It’s for the best!” he turned the gun on himself.
The shooting in front of the Monroe police station on Aug. 5 put an end to the family’s desperate search for mental health care for Bryan Hetherwick and his grandson, his wife said.
“He’d been saying for the last couple of weeks, “It’s just hopeless,’ ” Carolyn Hetherwick said. “I blame the mental health system. How many people are going to die before we do something?”
The family spent hundreds of hours navigating a web of social service agencies with few results, she said. It was easier for Bryan Hetherwick to get a gun than to find someone to help his family.
About 21/2 hours before the shooting, he bought a Russian-made Makarov from a Mukilteo man. Police have asked federal officials to investigate the sale.
He could have received immediate help that afternoon from Monroe police or a number of other agencies that offer crisis intervention, officials say.
What was lacking was long-term aid for his severe depression and his grandson’s bipolar disorder, Carolyn Hetherwick said.
Common problem
Thousands of other families across the state face the same problem. The limited amount of care available is increasingly difficult to find, and will likely become more scarce because of changes in federal funding for mental health services, families and advocates say.
“Every time there’s a story like this tragedy in Monroe, we think, ‘What do people expect?’ ” said Jack Bilsborough, past president of the Snohomish County chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. “When the treatment gets more difficult to get, and more and more people can’t get treatment at all, it’s obvious that there’s going to be more suicides.”
Hundreds in Snohomish County are being denied treatment or moved out of mental health residences because of the funding changes, officials say.
“We’re reaching a crisis point in Washington state,” said Lori Flood, coordinator of ARC of Snohomish County’s Parent-Family Coalition, whose son has a genetic disorder.
State funding has not kept up with the need, said David Daniels, operations chief of the state Department of Social and Health Services’ Mental Health Division. State dollars have remained about the same for the past decade, he said.
Recent residents
Hetherwick and her family had been in the state for only two months, moving here from Texas to be closer to Brennan’s aunt in Monroe.
In Texas, Brennan attended a preschool for children with special needs. He was a bright child, able to name all 50 states at age 3, his grandmother said.
But his emotional and behavioral needs required care difficult to find in Snohomish County, his grandmother said, even though the family had health insurance.
“I thought Dallas was bad, but it was much worse up here,” she said.
The day before the shooting, they learned that the day care they had finally found for Brennan wasn’t going to work. They were told not to come back until they had an aide for Brennan.
“Bryan’s head just dropped,” she said. “I think that’s what did it, that we couldn’t find anyplace for Brennan.”
The Hetherwicks had cared for Brennan since he was 10 months old. His father, their adopted son, also has bipolar disorder.
Brennan needed constant care, Hetherwick said. He bit and kicked when upset and didn’t seem to understand danger, once wandering away from their Monroe home.
Because Hetherwick has multiple sclerosis, which has left her partially blind and barely able to walk during her last relapse, Bryan Hetherwick was Brennan’s main caregiver.
It was a role he had loved, despite struggling with depression, his wife said. He’d contemplated suicide since the Texas insurance company he had worked for closed last year.
His depression and suicidal thoughts led him to check himself into the hospital on seven separate occasions, including once in July, Carolyn Hetherwick said.
He was seeing a therapist once a week but could not get additional care, she said.
Their savings had almost run out, she said, but her husband was unable to find another job until they could find child care for Brennan.
“Bryan just didn’t see a way out,” she said.
They’d made more than 60 phone calls for help and asked the state for assistance in caring for Brennan, she said, but were told one of the adults had to be working to get aid. Without care, Brennan’s condition was worsening, and they were close to hospitalizing him again.
They’d also been working with an adoption agency, which found two couples who were interested in adopting him.
State officials could not discuss the Hetherwicks’ efforts to obtain aid, but said resources are available for families in similar situations.
DSHS spokesman Jeff Weathersby advised families to go to the closest Community Resource Office, where caseworkers can help with an array of needs.
Carolyn Hetherwick said she plans to lobby for more services and easier ways to get them.
“I don’t care if they have to wheel me in (to the state Capitol), I will tell them that this has taken the lives of two of my loved ones,” she said. “Mental illness is not going away. It needs to be treated.”
Reporter Katherine Schiffner: 425-339-3436 or schiffner@ heraldnet.com.
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