Son seeks estate of mother he killed

Joshua Hoge doesn't need much spending money these days. Behind the locked doors of Western State Hospital, his basic needs — food, clothes and a constant stream of antipsychotic medications to keep his delusions at bay — are paid for by the state.

But Hoge has the chance to one day become a wealthy man.

From inside Western State, where he's spent most of his time since stabbing his mother and brother to death with a butcher knife in 1999, Hoge is fighting to inherit part of his mother's estate.

Should he succeed, it could be a windfall for the 37-year-old schizophrenic, who was found not guilty of the slayings by reason of insanity.

After Hoge killed his mother, Pamela Kissinger, her family won $800,000 in a civil suit against King County when it was determined that a public-health clinic had failed to give Hoge his medication and was partially responsible for the slayings.

Hoge's claim to that money is now poised to set legal precedent for interpretation of Washington's sometimes-vague Slayer Statute: the law that prohibits most killers from profiting off their victims. While some states have decided whether people found not guilty by reason of insanity can inherit the estates of their victims, Washington has not.

The case was set to be decided last month by the state Court of Appeals. But the appellate court sent it back to King County Superior Court, which originally decided Hoge could not inherit money from Kissinger. The appellate court said the King County court made a mistake in its original determination and must reconsider the case. No date has been set.

The ruling puzzled attorneys on both sides.

"The Legislature has made it very clear that they don't want people who kill people to profit from it," said Mark Leemon, who represents Hoge's uncle, the executor of his sister's estate.

Kissinger's family wants all the money to go to her third son in Oregon, who is also mentally ill and will need lifelong care, Leemon said.

But many of the details surrounding the case rest on complex legal definitions of what it means to be a killer, and what type of killer Hoge is.

Statute's key points

The Slayer Statute is designed to prevent those guilty of two key things — a "willful" and "unlawful" killing — from profiting from their crimes. So, for example, a person who accidentally hit a family member with a car wouldn't necessarily be prevented from collecting life insurance because, although the killing could have been unlawful, the killer didn't necessarily intend to do it.

Hoge's attorney, Jean O'Loughlin, argued that the June 23, 1999, slayings of Pamela and Zach Kissinger, Hoge's 49-year-old mother and 19-year-old brother, weren't legally unlawful because Hoge was found not guilty. Therefore, the Slayer Statute should not even apply, she said.

John Strait, a Seattle University associate professor of law, agrees.

"For all intents and purposes, there is no crime. We don't punish people for being really sick. We don't impose criminal culpability on people who are mentally ill," he said. "It's nutty logic."

But the appeals court said that while Hoge might not be criminally responsible under the law because he was insane, the killing was still unlawful.

Whether the killing was "willful" — the second point required under the statute — is murkier.

The appeals court sent the case back to King County because the judges said the wrong standard was used when determining that Hoge's act was willful.

O'Loughlin could also ask for consideration by the state Supreme Court — a tactical move she is not sure she'll take.

Wherever it lands, the case will rest heavily on Hoge's tortured mental history.

Long, troubled history

Long before the slayings, Hoge's behavior and beliefs caused alarm among his family members and earned him a series of diagnoses, commitments and heavy drug prescriptions, according to court documents describing his medical history.

A mental-health summary says he was physically abused as a young child and began sleeping with a knife at age 9. He used alcohol and drugs and got into criminal trouble as a teen and was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia while in juvenile detention.

Hoge often heard voices, lived on and off with his mother or father, and did not hold a job.

When he was hospitalized, he often threatened to kill staff and had threatened his mother and brother, according to court documents and medical reports.

Hoge was eventually diagnosed with Capgras delusion, whereby he believed family members were replaced by identical impostors. He believed he could use magic and fly into space to prevent people from harming him and that others were trying to use their magic on him, according to his court documents.

Two days before he killed his mother and brother, Hoge went to Northwest Behavioral Services, a King County-contracted clinic where he was an outpatient, and requested a prescription for an antipsychotic medication, according to court records. The nurse practitioner told Hoge he could not have the medication until June 30 and wrote him a postdated prescription.

On June 23, 1999, Walter Williams, Pamela Kissinger's boyfriend, returned to the Renton-area home he shared with Pamela Kissinger to find Hoge waving an ax. Hoge chased Williams and hit him in the head with the ax. Williams made it back outside the home and called police.

When officers arrived, they found Zach Kissinger lying under a pile of clothes and covered with stab and head wounds. Pamela Kissinger's body was downstairs, stabbed and wrapped in a comforter. She had been positioned holding a photo of her sons.

After his trial, Hoge was sent to Western State, where he could spend the rest of his life unless it is proved to the court that he is not a danger to the community.

If that happened, he could get a conditional release, starting out in a separate, independent-living facility at the hospital before moving into the community, O'Loughlin said. At that point, she said, the estate money would be useful to pay for continuing therapy and treatment.

Is it fair?

Though it's not part of the legal determinations, one might wonder whether it seems fair, or moral, for Hoge to inherit money from the mother he killed.

It is, O'Loughlin says.

Hoge's mother, though burdened by her son's mental illness, loved and supported Hoge, said his attorney.

"She knew how disabled he was, how his life was basically a living hell," O'Loughlin said. "Think of your worst nightmare. That's what it's like for people with mental illness, but they're awake. Morally, it's not their fault.

"But I guess everyone would have to decide that for themselves."

Natalie Singer: 206-464-2704 or nsinger@seattletimes.com