Joseph, Daniel

Deaf from illness during infancy; attended the Penn School for Deaf Children, Buckinghamshire, where he was continually disruptive in class. At age 15, he became hooked on American professional wresting and its violent, macho ethos. Disappointed in December 1996 by not being able to see one of his wresting idols in person, he became violent towards his family and spent 8 months in a psychiatric hospital, where he was identified as psychotic. Released to a halfway house, he did not receive the care he needed because of buck-passing between agencies. He then walked out of the home and took up residence with 57-year-old Carla Thompson, a religious eccentric with a habit of taking in lost souls for temporary residence. He soon stopped taking his anti-psychosis medication, and began having more outbreaks of temper and violence towards his family and friends. On January 22, 1998, he exploded, savagely murdering Thompson and another middle-aged woman living on the floor above. He was detained indefinitely in a mental institution, again on medication.