Man who killed father in 2006 to be freed

LOVINGSTON — A Gladstone man who was found clinically insane after he shot and killed his father in 2005 will be released from Western State Hospital.
Circuit Judge J. Michael Gamble approved a conditional release plan for Moriah Robin Tolton on Thursday in Nelson County Circuit Court. Tolton will remain at Western State Hospital until the plan can be enacted, which experts said will take one week.
Tolton, now 32, was acquitted of first-degree murder and using a firearm to commit murder by pleading not guilty by reason of insanity in February 2006. The plea came after two psychologists found him legally insane at the time of the offense. Since then, Tolton has been treated in state mental facilities.

LeeAnn Bass, a psychologist at Western State Hospital, testified Thursday that she doesn’t think Tolton will be a danger to the community.
“Mr. Tolton’s aggression was directed at his father because of his delusions,” Bass said in court.
In May 2005, Tolton shot and killed 60-year-old John Julius Tolton with a .30-caliber rifle at the family’s Norwood Road home. Moriah Tolton initially told authorities that he accidentally shot his father during a struggle, but he later said he grabbed the rifle from the shed while his father slept and shot him when he walked into the hallway.
Moriah Tolton was discovered naked in the woods near his home. Authorities said he sliced his hand to remove a metal plate and avoid detection by infrared devices. Tolton told authorities that he killed his father because the patriach had sexually abused him for years.
Bass testified Thursday that Tolton has been asymptomatic since arriving at the hospital three years ago. The psychologist said in court that she thinks Tolton no longer requires inpatient hospitalization but does need outpatient treatment.

Under the plan discussed on Thursday, Tolton will live under constant monitoring in an apartment complex owned by the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Community Services Board.
Staff will administer Tolton’s medicine and monitor his blood to further ensure that he is taking his medication. Tolton also will be required to undergo substance abuse treatment and meet regularly with a psychiatrist and psychologist.
An agency employee testified Thursday that Tolton could stay at the apartment complex indefinitely. If he doesn’t comply with his treatment, Tolton can be rehospitalized.
Tolton has undergone an annual review of his case since his insanity plea. In court Thursday, Bass said that she didn’t suggest a conditional release plan during last year’s review because the staff hadn’t found outpatient services to help Tolton.
Since entering Western State, Tolton has worked in the hospital’s cafeteria and taken college courses. Tolton has gotten four 48-hour passes to go to a recovery center in Charlottesville, as a way to prove his willingness to take his medication regularly, Bass said in court.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Phil Payne said in court that he is concerned about whether Tolton would remain on his medication, noting that a large portion of cases in Nelson’s courts are a result of people not taking their medication.
“If Mr. Tolton gets off of his medication or has a relapse of his psychological condition, my concern is that he kills someone,” Payne said in court.
Defense attorney Michael Hallahan said in court that his client only was looking to hurt one person.
“[It] wasn’t a random homicidal delusion where anyone was in danger,” Hallahan said in court. “The only person it might be directed at isn’t here anymore.”

A member of Tolton’s family declined to comment for this story.
The insanity defense makes Tolton ineligible to be retried on the charges in connection with his father’s homicide. Richard J. Bonnie, the Harrison Foundation Professor of Medicine and Law at the University of Virginia, said it is rare for a defendant to try an insanity plea.
“Based on [estimates in Virginia and nationally], it is raised in only a fraction of one percent of felony cases,” Bonnie said. “In the cases in which it is raised and litigated, the defendant usually loses.”
Virginia requires a defendant seeking the insanity defense to prove that he suffers from a mental disease or defect, and as a result of his mental issue, he didn’t know what he was doing or that what he was doing was wrong.

Conditional discharges have been an option in Virginia for about 20 years. Although they have been successful due to careful monitoring, Bonnie said, the criminal justice system is reluctant to release people who were committed on the basis of “insanity acquittals for very serious offenses.”