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Cambria man guilty of murder

September 24, 2013

Brandon HensleeA Cambria man who stabbed his brother in the head with a screwdriver was found guilty of first degree murder on Monday.

A jury found Brandon Henslee, 23, guilty of murdering his brother Tyler Hanks, 20, in 2012 at a home they shared with their mother and her boyfriend Mike Coffin. Witnesses said Hanks was beaten with a baseball bat and stabbed 20 times in the head with a screwdriver.

Witnesses described Hanks as a methamphetamine dealer in a home where drug use was common.

Hanks and Henslee’s mother Sheri Grayson told CalCoastNews that a lack of mental health services in San Luis Obispo County contributed to her family’s tragedy.

About a year before the murder, Henslee tried to get help for his mental illness. He reached out to a parole psychologist who suggested Henslee check himself into San Luis Obispo’s County Mental Health’s short term facility with plans to move him to a hospital in another county with better mental health services.

However, a worker at San Luis Obispo County Mental Health found Henslee’s demeanor threatening and he was taken from the mental health facility to jail before he could be transported out of county.

Henslee became the sixth mentally ill person to be suspected or accused of killing in 20 months in San Luis Obispo County.

Henslee sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 13.

 


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What is it about our culture that lends itself to this seemingly overwhelming degree of mental illness?


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Pull your heads out folks, there is no mental illness. Fact is Its nothing more than a choice to use an addictive drug that makes you a brain dead tweeker.


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And you are basing this claim on what real science?


You do realize that denying some fairly basic standard medical knowledge (science), makes you a candidate for what you deny exists.


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Just as much as it is a choice of what color eyes you have.


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What am I missing when someone goes to the “Mental” Health Facility in SLO and the staff is not equip to handle citizens with these issues. Of course they have problems, anger, misbehaving, etc. There are reaching out for help. Are these folks looking for the happy go-lucky person to walk in there door. For the amount of money this County gets and spends on Mental Health we should do better at this facility or close it down. This is not the first mishap we have heard about this place. They are not equip to handle folks with problems…


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Yes, it was completely due to lack of mental health services. Not that complete and total parenting failure or dismal “family” situation. Three different people, three different last names. I cannot be the only one to (probably wrongly) assume the worst?


Statistics do not lie.


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The article doesn’t say that it was “completely due”. The article says that it “contributed”.


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Ah, well then, just completely disregard anything that was said… :/


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(I was going to reply in a snarky fashion and point out no one ever said the article said “completely due” – if you check closely, those were my own words. Sorry for your confusion).


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You read my mind…


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See the word “contributed” in the sentence, “Hanks and Henslee’s mother Sheri Grayson told CalCoastNews that a lack of mental health services in San Luis Obispo County contributed to her family’s tragedy.” Contribute, defined by Merriam-Webster as, “to help to cause something to happen”. So your statement is completely and utterly worthless and invalid, and does not reflect what the mother was quoted as saying, yet garnered eleven likes as of now from others who clearly do not want to address the lack of mental health services, especially for those courageous enough to seek it out, but would rather see people with mental disabilities locked up. Which is actually more expensive than treating the issue so you end up screwing yourself and society.


While his family situation certainly was not ideal by most all standards, he needed mental health help that could have included therapy and drugs that quite possibly could have prevented this tragedy. And what statistics are you referring to that “do not lie”? Statistics lie all the time and can be tweaked or presented in a way that is advantageous to the statistician’s desired outcome.


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r0y says: “Statistics do not lie.”


You realise that making that statement without including any actual “Statistics” is completely meaningless?


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