When Dana Ericson approached Yue Zhang on Feb. 18, 2015 he yelled about killing her and bloodied her back with a blade. He was in a downward cycle that his mother had seen before.
The 61-year-old Nashville man who was accused nearly a year and a half ago of striking an exchange student in the back with a hatchet did not intend to hurt the girl, he and several other witnesses testified last week.
Dana Ericson, his doctors and his 100-year-old mother Davida Ericson told the court that he has a long history of mental illness.
“At the beginning, there is euphoria,” she said. “At the end, there is mania.”
On Aug. 16, after a two-day bench trial, Brown Circuit Judge Judith Stewart ruled that Ericson was not responsible by reason of insanity.
The successful use of an insanity defense is rare, and so is having the unanimous agreement of the doctors who testified, Prosecutor Ted Adams said.
Ericson had been charged with three felonies, including attempted murder, in the attack that left 18-year-old Zhang with limited use of an arm for about three weeks, Adams said. She has since regained all function.
Zhang, who is overseas, did not testify in person, but a transcript of her testimony, and that of two witnesses to the attack, was entered into evidence.
Ericson’s attorney, Jacob Moore, called the verdict “a relief.”
“I think that this was the right outcome under the law,” he said. “I recognize when people first hear the news, they might be surprised, they might even be angry, but if people learn all the nuances of this complex situation, I think a reasonable person would conclude that this was consistent with the law and also consistent with public safety.”
Adams said there were four potential outcomes in this case, for which Moore had filed a notice to use the insanity defense: Guilty, not guilty, guilty but mentally ill or not responsible by reason of insanity.
There’s a distinction between mental illness and insanity under Indiana law, he said.
“You can be mentally ill and still appreciate the wrongfulness of your acts. That’s the crux of the issue. Was he mentally ill and still appreciating the wrongfulness of his conduct? Or was he not responsible because he did not appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct?”
Adams said he was hoping Ericson would have been found guilty but mentally ill, which would have meant he’d be committed to the Indiana Department of Correction to receive mental health treatment.
If he would have been found guilty and not mentally ill, he was facing 20 to 40 years in an Indiana prison with an advisory sentence of 30, Moore said.
With a ruling of not responsible by reason of insanity, Ericson will stay in custody until he has a commitment hearing, Adams said. Then, a doctor will evaluate him to decide if he’s gravely ill or dangerous. “If he’s either of those, he’s going to be committed to a mental institute indefinitely,” Adams said.
“Clearly, Dana Ericson, the evidence shows, is mentally ill,” Adams said. “I don’t think the state could reasonably argue otherwise.”
Testimony
After he was arrested at the scene, Ericson, in a police interview, said he was attempting “ethnic cleansing.”
Testifying in his own defense, he said that was completely out of character with his actual beliefs.
“I have nothing to do with racial hatred. I am opposed to hatred,” he said.
Davida Ericson testified that her son had cut off contact a few days before the incident. She knew he was overdue for his required monthly injection of an antipsychotic drug, and she was worried.
“What is very puzzling and troubling to me is that he was given 10 days after missing an appointment to come in voluntarily, at a time when he was known to not be capable of normal behavior or making a wise decision,” she said.
She called sheriff’s deputies to conduct welfare checks on him at his home on Whippoorwill Lane at least four times, and each time, police said he appeared to be OK, she testified.
On the day of the attack, Ericson went for a long hike wearing his late father’s clothes. He had the hatchet holstered on his belt because he said he had heard about wild dogs in Brown County, but he hadn’t meant it to be a weapon; it was “a magical tool” and “a sacred object” that helped him sense danger, he testified.
He told the court he hadn’t slept for days and that he’d been convinced that someone had been trying to kill him. He decided to walk into Nashville — about five miles from home — to see his mom.
Around 2:45 p.m., he was downtown, about a block north of the courthouse, when he saw Zhang walking, out on assignment for a high school photography class.
He decided in that moment that if he could make “contact” with Zhang — a Chinese woman whom he did not know — he could somehow disrupt the “armageddon” be believed the Chinese government was planning.
“Every time I get into these episodes, it’s like the whole world goes crazy. There’s this big battle between good and evil. Somehow, I am this heroic figure that is supposed to battle this evil,” he said.
In his interview with police after the incident, he called what he did “communication.”
On the stand, he explained what he meant by that by talking about a “wheel” in the sky that he said he saw 40 years ago and mentioning the Book of Revelation from the Bible.
He said he had been trying “various things” to try to communicate with the Chinese in the weeks leading up the attack, and he saw his crossing paths with Zhang as an opportunity to send a “message of divine wisdom” and cause an “awakening” to save the world from impending nuclear war.
He said at the time, he considered what he did to be “a nonviolent act.”
“I thought I was this being and I could fill the world, give this kind of tremendous shock of divine law and fill the world with divine law,” he said.
“When I had contact with her, I thought I had been successful in doing this crazy wisdom. I walked away. I didn’t think I had hurt her. I didn’t think I had hurt her at all,” he said.
“All that was in my mind was trying to do somebody good,” he said. “I was in a disturbed psychotic state. I am not claiming this is something that is going to make a lot of sense, but I am trying to explain what my thinking is.”
Aftermath
Zhang sustained a gash to her back near her spinal column that Sgt. Bill Southerland estimated was about 2 inches long and three-quarters of an inch wide and deep. She was released from the hospital to her Brown County host family that evening.
Zhang took photos of Ericson walking away after the attack.
A witness, Patricia Rzeszut, who did not testify in person, grabbed him in a bear hug, then kept talking with him until police arrived, within about 5 minutes, Adams said. “It’s a credit to her bravery that she was willing to do that,” he said.
Zhang’s wound has since closed to about 3 centimeters, Moore said.
But that is not the only wound she carries, Adams said. She now worries when older men are behind her, he said.
“It’s very tragic. I was choked up listening to her testify via telephone, because you could tell that it had affected her,” Adams said.
He said he hopes Ericson will be moved to a place equipped to deal with mental health conditions as soon as possible. Twice while waiting for trial, he was moved to a state hospital from the county jail after doctors testified that his mental state was deteriorating.
“History has shown that the jail is not a place that’s conducive to Dana’s mental health,” Adams said.
