MADNESS Two years ago, an Ohio University graduate student killed his father, a beloved history professor, by stabbing him more than 40 times. At the time, few people knew the killer had a history of severe mental illness.
By Andrew Eisenman
E
arly one September evening two years ago, Ohio University graduate student Jonathan Bebb, then 32, stabbed his father to death. Afterward, he jogged a mile back to his apartment on Richland Avenue, cleaned himself up and walked to campus. Jonathan had cut his father 40-some times with a small lock-blade knife, including stabs to the face, neck, chest and genitals. He had walked to his father’s house on Mulligan Road that day to reconcile. He wanted his father, Phillip Bebb, 66, a semiretired associate professor of history with a focus on the Italian Renaissance, to admit to the family that he had been sexually abusing and psychologically tormenting Jonathan for decades. Psychologists say Jonathan, who at one time or another was considered to have had a spectrum of mental illnesses — bipolar disorder, paranoid schizophrenia, depression — has delusions, confabulations. He believed his father was a perpetual threat to his health and safety. He felt he couldn’t get on with his life and accomplish his goals unless that threat was removed. His delusions were real to him, even if somebody told him they were not real. His perception of reality was his perception of reality, and Phillip had mentioned to neighbors that he feared
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Jonathan might try to hurt him. When Susan West, Jonathan’s stepmother, returned home, she went inside and discovered red on the stairs and the kitchen floor, blood on the walls like a Jackson Pollock. She found her husband’s body on the floor in the doorway of the TV room, shirtless, carved and bloody. She immediately called 911. Reserve Unit Commander David Malawista was moderating a community policing dialogue at the rec center on State Street when he received a call about a homicide. “They wanted me to go and deal with the wife, who had walked in and found her husband butchered,” he said. “It’s the only way to describe it.” When Malawista arrived at the house, West had already been transported to O’Bleness Hospital. Malawista took a brief look around inside, stepping over bloodstains, a path of red footprints through three different rooms. There was blood in the bathroom and the door was kicked in, toiletries scattered on the floor. The house, it smelled like Listerine. Malawista had seen a number of homicides, various mechanisms of death. This was a nasty one. This was personal. A knife is much more personal than any other weapon — it takes a lot of time and energy
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and close contact to deliver that kind of damage to a human body. Initially, police assumed Phillip had committed suicide because there were no signs of forced entry into the house. His son, Jonathan, was also brought up as a possible suspect due to mental health issues he was noted to have. Jonathan was charged with the murder early the next morning. Later in the day, he was cleaning out his car at his mother and stepfather’s house when police arrived. Questioning moved into the living room, where Jonathan told investigators about his dysfunctional relationship with Phillip. Investigators noted that during the routine interview, Jonathan showed “little emotion or reaction about his father’s death.” They noticed a cut on Jonathan’s thumb, which he said was from a “kitchen accident.” Investigators asked Jonathan if he had hurt his father, and Jonathan said, “I need to think about it for a while… That’s complicated.” He was taken into the police department on College Street for further questioning.
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n November 18, 2007, Jonathan was indicted on one count of aggravated murder, to which he pled not guilty. By March 2008, following the result of a