Robert T. Kinscherff, Esq.

117 Franklin Street, No. 2 Brookline, MA 02445
Attorney at Law: MA Work Phone: (617) 480-9214
MA, NH, TX Robert_Kinscherff@williamj amesedu

Report on Forensic Consultation

Case: Wilfred Dacier (Inmate 1 1)
Facility: NCCI?Gardner

Referred by: MA Parole Board

Contact at Board: Eric Crane

Date of Evaluation: 06.24.2015

Date of Report: 07.25.2015

Referral and Identifying Information

Wilfred Dacier IS a now?58 year old White male referred by the Parole Board for? a mental
health evaluation to determine which mental health services would be necessary and available to
him should he be released to the community.?1

Mr. Dacier had previously been granted parole in December 2010 conditioned upon release to a
secure DMH facility but DMH subsequently held that Mr. Dacier did not meet eligibility criteria
for DMH services. His parole was therefore rescinded in December 2013 since he could not
meet the condition of release to a secure DMH inpatient facility. A request by the Parole Board
following a June 2014 hearing for DMH reconsideration of this decision resulted in another
determination that Mr. Dacier is not functionally impaired enough to warrant DMH services and
his application was again denied. 

Index Offense

Mr. Dacier stabbed and killed his sister, Susan Dacier (age 34) during the early morning hours of
10.21.95 during a domestic dispute. This murder occurred in the context of Mr. Dacier?s
substance abuse, family disagreements and con?ict associated with their mother deteriorating
health, and his ?nancial stressors and social isolation. In April 1997, he pled guilty to second
degree murder and was sentenced to life with possibility of parole.

Institutional Course

Mr. Dacier was arrested on 10.21.95 and had two subsequent pretrial Bridgewater State Hospital
(B SH) admissions due to suicidal ideation. He was committed to BSH following sentencing in
October 1995 where he remained until July 1998. He was discharged to Old Colony
Correctional Center where he incurred two disciplinary-reports (not standing for count)
and engaged in mental health services including the Residential Treatment Unit (RTU).

He was then transferred to NCCI-Gardner in January 2004 where he has incurred one
disciplinary report for failing to report for a scheduled appointment. He entered the RTU
program there in July 2006 and began employment at the optical shop in June 2009 Where he

 

1 Parole Board decision dated July 9, 2014.

 

continues long hours of daily employment to date. He was transitioned from RTU to general
population in 2009 ?due to his stability and full-time employment in optical.? Overall, his
institutional adjustment is described as ?excellent? with very limited and minor disciplinary
reports, placement at RTU at and NCCI?Gardner and consistent engagement in
care, and consistent employment.

Mr. Dacier is diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder manifested by paranoid ideation,
depression and anxiety but has reportedly been consistently engaged for many years in treatment
and stabilized on medication without indications of resurgence of acute 
or deterioration of functioning.

Parole Board records indicate there was a close association between Mr. Dacier?s mental illness
and his lethal attack upon his sister. It is unclear what contribution his serious substance abuse
played in the index offense other than being generally associated with his deteriorating mental
status. He has completed the most intensive mental health services available to the DOC
(commitments to BSH and placement at RTUs in two facilities). Mr. Dacier has stated that he
needs ?structure, routine and I need to take my medication or I don?t know what will happen?
and that he ?won?t succeed unless I take my medication or I get therapy.?2

Information from Nanette Bradley, LICSW

Ms. Bradley is the treating clinician for Mr. Dacier. She reports that Mr. Dacier has been ?stable
for many years? without any signs of decompensation and is maintained on a modest
medication routine (Prozac 20 mg, Risperdal 1 mg). He has a ?very consistent presentation?
characterized by ruminations about details of his day and scheduling, anxiety if there may be
deviations in his ?very structured? day, and faithful compliance with medications and his once-
therapy sessions. Mr. Dacier remains consistently engaged in treatment despite his
downplaying of having significant mental health issues, at least in part because he insists (despite
efforts to inform him otherwise) that he has a ?lifetime Rogers? that requires his continued
compliance with treatment.

Ms. Bradley describes Mr. Dacier as living within a ?very structured, controlled environment? at
NCCI?Gardner which organizes his daily activities from very early in the morning (he reports to
the optical shop at 730 am) through mid?evening (he routinely works the overtime shift in the
optical shop until 830 pm). When he becomes distressed he is able to use short?term de-
escalating 1:1 mental health supports very well but has dif?culty connecting reasonably
identi?able stressors to his sense of distress becoming brie?y and uncharacteristically
irritable following the DMH decision that he is not eligible for DMH services).

His primary challenge on a daily basis is that he has poor social skills and can ?keep people
captured in one-sided conversations.? He reportedly has some but still incomplete appreciation
that in these situations he be annoying, or that he can be perceived as potentially threatening
when he is irritable.

Ms. Bradley reported that Mr. Dacier?s Schizoaffective Disorder can be effectively managed but
would be concerned if he withdrew from care and resumed substance use, especially

 

2 Parole Board decision of July 2014.

 

if he lacked the daily structure afforded by meaningful vocational activities and appropriate
superVision.

Information and Behavioral Observations During Interview

Mr. Dacier is a 58 year old White male who presented as perhaps older than his stated age but
well-kempt in prison garb. He was actively engaged in the interview process and responsive, .
sometimes catching himself as he began to over?focus and apologizing for ?dominating? the
conversation.

He reports that he has a diagnosis of Schizoaffective Disorder characterized by ?distortions?a
tendency to look at the dark side of things,? getting ?perked up? and ?preaching to a person
rather than listening,? and elevated energy and intensity of interpersonal engagement. He reports
that he has been stable on his medications for the past 14 years and has ?done a lot of work on
myself.?

His developmental course was largely unremarkable through high school but he began to
struggle as he entered the University of South Carolina in 1976. His academic failures and the
death of his father in 1978 led to bouts of depression and the onset of alcohol and marijuana
abuse. Over time, he lost jobs, failed to develop peer supports and intimate relationships, and
came into con?ict with his mother and siblings about his vocational instability, substance use,
and relative lack of achievement in a family of higher achievement. In March 1987 he sustained
a ?broken back? while skiing which further limited his activities and demoralized him, and by
1990 he had begun serious abuse of cocaine. This intensi?ed con?ict with his family and the
deteriorating health of his mother and her placement in a nursing home af?icted with terminal
cancer were additional stressors for him. The murder of his sister in October 1995 was the
culmination of a downward spiral precipitated, at least in part, by her threat that evening to have
him committed under a Section 35 and his sense at the time that she was ?harassing? him by
pointing out his vocational and interpersonal failures.

Following the murder, Mr. Dacier was committed to Bridgewater State Hospital (BSH) where he
made two suicide attempts and was ?detoxed? at the ICU. Following conviction and sentencing,
he was spent two and a half more years at BSH, reportedly with diagnoses of PTSD and
Depression with Features. This would later be changed to Schizoaffective Disorder.3

He was transferred to the Old Colony facility between 1998 2004 and spent time in the RTU at
that facility. He was then transferred to NCCI?Gardner in 2004 Where he was in the RTU
between 2006 2008. As indicated above, he has been consistently employed at the optical shop
in recent years and has also completed a number of groups.

Mr. Dacier reports that ?number 1 when I leave [for community re?entry] is establishing a
routine.? He does ?not want to go ?green? to the streets? since he has been incarcerated for some

 

3 An April 1997 examination of Mr. Dacier by Malcolm Rogers, MD opined that Mr. Dacier was not
suffering from a disorder at the time of the offense. Rather, Dr. Rogers held that Mr. Dacier had a
?personality disorder, with mixed features, both schizoid, schizotypal, and obsessive, and an adjustment disorder
with depressive, angry, and anxious features.?

 

21 years and have nothing out there.?4 He has been engaged with the Catholic community

. since 2005 but does not anticipate consistent support from his religious af?liation. He reports
that he will need assistance with money management, ?nding employment to transition from his
SUpervised medication administration and an identi?ed prescribing physician, an 
individual counselor to support his re-entry, and housing. He had been hoping for a re-entry
starting with a DMH inpatient admission to assure stabilization and to receive case management
planning through a gradual step?down process to community placement and clinical care.

For his part, Mr. Dacier feels that DMH denials of eligibility amount to ?punishing me for doing
well in prison?n0 setbacks [due to misconduct on his part], no major d-tickets. DMH doesn?t
want me because I am not impaired enough [due to his choice to consistently engage in
treatment] and because DMH doesn?t want people with my kind of criminal record.?
Nonetheless, he remains willing to engage in a re?entry process that would include a period of
inpatient care in a DMH unit.

Summary and Recommendations

Mr. Dacier is a now-58 White male who has been incarcerated for almost two decades following
conviction for the stabbing murder of his sister in 1995. At the time, he was abusing substances
(especially cocaine) and had manifested deteriorating functioning and mental status. Since then,
he has variously been awarded diagnoses of Personality Disorder with Mixed Features? (1997),
PTSD and Depression with Features (late 1990?s by Bridgewater State Hospital), and
Schizoaffective Disorder (reportedly by Bridgewater State Hospital). He has availed himself of
care since incarceration which has included RTU placements at Old. Colony and then
at NCCI?Gardner. He has been at clinical baseline for some 14 years with no indication of acute
or functional deterioration and is treated with maintenance medications
(Prozac, Risperdal) and once counseling sessions.

DMH has twice determined that he does not meet eligibility requirements, and especially that he
does not present with the functional impairment due to mental illness required to warrant DMH
services. Mr. Dacier?s case illustrates the problems that can arise when applying DIVIH
eligibility criteria which were devised for persons who will largely be served in the community
and did not contemplate the circumstances of persons in the criminal justice system. Persons in
the criminal justice system may be stabilized by the combined in?uences?eoften .
over years--of consistent access to supervised medication, some degree of therapy
services, and the high degree of structure/supervision of incarceration settings.

By way of analogy, if a DMH client who is in the community goes into crisis and
requires acute and then continuing care state hospital admission, stabilization in an inpatient unit
to a level of functioning that permits discharge back to the community does not trigger a

determination that the DMH client is no longer eligible for DMH services as a result of
stabilization while in hospital. Similarly, that Mr. Dacier has been stabilized as a result of
care (including RTU placement and years of medication and supports) While
incarcerated does not mean that he does not have a mental illness or that he is prepared to return

 

4 Mr. Dacier reports that he is estranged from family members and cannot expect family supports, especially from
his brother whom he describes as still very hostile towards him for killing their sister.

4

without thoughtful transition and proactive supports to community placement and services after
some two decades of incarceration and consistent mental health care.

Optimally, public safety and Mr. Dacier would be best served were he to transition from
incarceration to a DMH inpatient unit where he could continue to reliably receive 
care, a gradual transition to lower levels of care/supervision in anticipation of community-based
care, and case?management planning. There is room for reasonable diSpute regarding Mr.
Dacier?s' diagnosis but there is little dispute that however he might be diagnostically
described?his mental status played a signi?cant role in the murder of his sister. Similarly, there
is little dispute that clinicians observing him during his years of incarceration believed he
warranted RTU care in two incarceration facilities and consistent care whether in
RTU or general population.

I recommend forwarding Mr. Dacier?s case to the DMH Commissioner and Assistant 

Commissioner for Forensic Mental Health with a request for their review and consideration. The

Parole Board has determined that with the right kind of transition plan?requiring DMH

involvementhr. Dacier can be paroled. Without DMH participation, Mr. Dacier has been

blocked now for half a decade in beginning his transition out of DOC facilities. This delay is an

injury to Mr. Dacier?s liberty interests, 21 classic example of bureaucratic rules overcoming

common sense, and an unnecessary correctional system expense with no clear end-game to break I
the deadlock. DMH participation in a transition plan may not ?t the usual procedures for i
determining eligibility?but, of course, those usual procedures were not devised with persons i
with long?term incarceration along with ongoing care in mind. Public safety is best

I safeguarded with a plan which includes DMH.

If the DMH Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner determine that they are unwilling or
unable to interVene in Mr. Dacier?s situation to provide a transition through levels of public
sector mental health care, I recommend the following:
0 Gradual transfer through minimum security and then parole re-entry programming
. 0 Planning for insurance and disability coverage for uninterrupted behavioral health and
medical care .
0 Consultation with the Mass Rehabilitation Commission for access to services
0 Identi?cation of options for low income and subsidized housing
0 Referral to the Renaissance Club in Lowell (if he will be discharged to the that area of
Massachusetts) or to other clubhouses if his housing is elsewhere
0 Consultation with Career Center of Lowell for vocational placement/ support assistance
(or similar agency if his housing is elsewhere)

 

While transition through levels of public sector mental health services is optimal, Mr. Dacier?s
very limited history cf criminal misconduct (other than uncharged illegal substance possession)
prior to incarceration and his limited disciplinary record during some 20 years of incarceration

suggest that he can be successful in a parole transition. His transition should be gradual,
supported by ongoing access to services, and mindful of his reliance upon structured
meaningful activity (especially work). He should be monitored for signs of deterioration of
functioning (especially dif?culty with work), any acute of mood or thought disorder,
any indication of substance use, or any indication of disengagement from services.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if I. may respond to any questions or concerns regarding this
consultation or report.

  
 

Robert Kinscherff, JD
Forensic Examiner for MA Parole Board