Tag: Media

Another School Shooting. Another Mental Health Failure.

Written by Sheila Matthews on December 18, 2024. Posted in Articles.

December 18, 2024

Photo Credit Facebook, and reprinted by Daily Mail

Having covered school shootings for decades, it is encouraging that mental health information is being made public in record time. Just two days since the shooting in Madison Wisconsin and the fact that the shooter was receiving therapy has already hit the news cycle.

Fifteen-year-old Natalie (Samantha) Rupnow, the reported shooter at the Abundant Life Christian School, who opened fire on her fellow students and teachers, killing two and wounding six others, apparently was a pawn in her parent’s marital troubles. An unhappy kid to say the least.

According to a Washington Post report, the shooter’s parents married and divorced three times. The last divorce in 2021 provided a custody agreement that had the 15-year-old shuttling between each parent’s home every two or three days. And, given there was a custody case, it comes with the territory that the State’s Family Services Department would become involved. Another clue that the state became involved in Natalie’s welfare is that the parents were involved in mediation and according to the Post “Natalie had been enrolled in therapy, which was supposed to help guide decisions about which parent she would spend weekends with…”

Deadly Weapon: The Mental Health Industry’s Lethal Treatments

Written by Sheila Matthews on November 25, 2024. Posted in Articles.

November 25, 2025

Teenage Boy With Mental Health Problems Taking Medication At Home

Spencer Pearson, a former high school football star, was handed a life sentence last week for his 2023 violent and vicious stabbing attack of then 17-year-old Madison Schemitz in Ponte Vedra, Fla. It’s reported that Pearson “trembled and bowed his head in court” as the judge passed sentence.

Yes, as one would expect when one’s life is on the line, Pearson was contrite. And it’s important to note that Pearson’s attorney tried, unsuccessfully, to use the attackers “varied mental illnesses” as a mitigating defense. Of course, anyone would argue that someone who committed such a brutal attack must be suffering from mental illness. But is it that easy? Or is it possible that something else is at play?

For example, lots of young teenage boys’ experience getting dumped by girlfriends and don’t stalk them and then violently, repeatedly stab the former girlfriend, her mother and a stranger who stepped in to try and stop the rampage. No. Something else is at play here and, based on other brutal attacks carried out by seemingly normal unassuming teenage boys, one cannot help but admit this attack has the odor of a life of mental health intervention.