Couple Found Slain

After a Family Murder

By: Mikita Brottman

Narrated by: Christina Delaine, Mikita Brottman

This program includes an introduction read by the author.

“Mikita Brottman is one of today’s finest practitioners of nonfiction.”
—The New York Times Book Review

Critically acclaimed author and psychoanalyst Mikita Brottman offers literary true crime writing at its best, taking us into the life of a murderer after his conviction—when most stories end but the defendant's life goes on.

On February 21, 1992, 22-year-old Brian Bechtold walked into a police station in Port St. Joe, Florida and confessed that he’d shot and killed his parents in their family home in Silver Spring, Maryland. He said he’d been possessed by the devil. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and ruled “not criminally responsible” for the murders on grounds of insanity.

But after the trial, where do the "criminally insane" go? Brottman reveals Brian's inner life leading up to the murder, as well as his complicated afterlife in a maximum security psychiatric hospital, where he is neither imprisoned nor free. During his 27 years at the hospital, Brian has tried to escape and been shot by police, and has witnessed three patient-on-patient murders. He’s experienced the drugging of patients beyond recognition, a sadistic system of rewards and punishments, and the short-lived reign of a crazed psychiatrist-turned-stalker.

In the tradition of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Couple Found Slain is an insider’s account of life in the underworld of forensic psych wards in America and the forgotten lives of those held there, often indefinitely.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company

©2021 Mikita Brottman (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

Good story, annoying narration

The narrator of this story was mostly flat and robotic but I found it obnoxious when she tried to mimic people’s accents. I liked hearing from a patient’s perspective about their time in the Maryland state hospital system.

Great

This book was very good. I recommend reading this. Very insightful about mental illness and places

Give help to those that need it!

Brian was just a man who endured a horrible childhood and then an even more horrific rehabilitation or at least that's what they call it.

Mikita Fan -This Book Not So Much

Loved Brottman’s work An Unexplained Death although I did not share her ultimate analysis.
This piece would have been better served had she narrated it herself, from her POV similarly as ultimately it is her clinical investigative curiosity that is driving her in the first place.

The narration was abysmal, and because I don’t like to be unkind, I just kept thinking the artist was trying to imitate Brottman, failing miserably. I’m not sure how anyone can narrate with such an obvious disinterest.
Hit the actual Library and loan it for this one.

A Good Story, Not Typical True Crime, But...

I found this account to be an interesting read. The book is very upfront at first and says that this is not a typical True Crime read, so assume as much. Yes, Brian is a murderer of his parents and also was abused as the youngest child in his family and suffered mentally for it, however, it sounds like he was just being mistreated at the facility that he was sentenced to be at. He just wanted to be transferred to a prison, he didn't necessarily want to be freed. I'm sure that the actual events and story differ and go way deeper than what is in this book. Who is truly to say if he deserved to be transferred or what his motives truly were. I will keep my opinions to myself and let you decide. I'm sure that [some] state mental facilities have their fair share of negligence and abuse of their residents.

Too one-sided

Interesting subject matter but — it takes a journalistic tone while actually making an argument for why this guy should be released. I am surprised it was published. Would prefer that the author fully acknowledge biases, or else describe things more neutrally.

Gets some of the legal terminology wrong which was annoying for me as a lawyer and would probably also be annoying to the average Law & Order viewer (e.g. confusing direct and cross examination).

Thank god it’s over!

I did not like this book at all, the narrator was very dry, expressionless, no real subject matter. If I could have given half a star I would’ve.