Robert Detherow, the 55-year-old former Marine at the center of a six-hour standoff with police last week that included rants demanding the arrest of Sheriff Rick Staly, threats and obscene gestures against a deputy and hurling a glass bottle at her, said today that he was suffering “a psychotic break” brought on by PTSD.
Detherow and other witnesses in court today shed a lot more light on the June 5 incident where sheriff’s deputies again displayed considerable restraint in the face of repeated violence–against a deputy, against a robot, in verbal and physical gestures and, at the end in reckless defiance in the face of armed deputies–before seizing and arresting him.
All along, there’d been a firearm on a mantle in the house, a rocket launcher in a closet, and a large arsenal of rifles and handguns in a locked safe. After his arrest, Detherow unleashed a string of verbal attacks on the arresting deputy.
“I don’t know what I said. I was having a psychotic break. Obviously I needed help,” Detherow said, after Assistant State Attorney Jason Lewis asked him if he’d threatened the life of Sheriff’s deputy Necole Marsan, if he’d threatened to dismember her, rape her and torture her for billions of years.
He did remember telling her he’d torture her for 385 billion years. “I believe I said I was the devil or Satan, sir,” he told Lewis. “I don’t remember very much of it, sir. I was having a bad day. I have PTSD. I was in four wars. I was in Desert Storm, Desert Shield. I served three years in Afghanistan. So I did 2006–the person I replaced was killed. After that I did 2007, and in the year 2008 I lost almost 40 people on my team.”
Lewis did not have Detherow’s record. But official Defense Department casualty records indicate that in all of 2008, the Marine Corps lost 23 people in hostile situations and three in non-hostile situations, making his claim less than credible. In a FlaglerLive interview in 2017, Detherow said he had served as a National Guard reservist as an MP, in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, four deployments in Afghanistan.
Detherow was in court this afternoon as his attorney, Assistant Public Defender Troy Parker, argued against a motion by the state to keep Detherow in jail without bond. Parker was not successful: Detherow will stay in jail without bond.
Detherow faces a second degree felony charge of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and two third-degree felony charges stemming from the confrontation at 94 Forsythe Lane on June 5. The charges are not so severe that they would not normally draw reasonable bond. But Lewis argued that “the behavior is so erratic and so unusual in this situation and the threats were so vile and vulgar” that absent a mental evaluation, he should not be released.
Circuit Judge Terence Perkins agreed.
“The allegations with regard to this incident describe behavior that’s not only dangerous, but completely irrational,” the judge said. Detherow “chose to escalate the response by law enforcement for no apparent reason in ways that not only put the community in danger and the law enforcement officers specifically, but put him in danger, for reasons that relate to his post traumatic stress is what I’ve heard.” In videos he’d posted three days before and in statements he made to law enforcement during the standoff, Detherow had made allusions to suicide-by cop.
Perkins said he had no evidence regarding Detherow’s PTSD, his mental health history or any psychiatric issues. His attorney presented none. So the judge could not go on Detherow’s account that he “needed help.”
“My obligation is to keep the community, law enforcement and the defendant safe,” Perkins said. “I’m not going to risk this type of incident happening again, even though guns have been taken away, thank God for that. But he can still get guns or borrow guns, or whatever. So I think we need information.”
A sheriff’s deputy testified today that he had retrieved numerous firearms–he couldn’t remember the exact number–including “several Russian-type SKS rifles, 7.62 caliber, several handguns, we have two whole bags of ammunition, various ammunition. There was an MP40 semi-automatic weapon, several magazines filled, several 30-round magazines.”
They were all kept in a safe. Detherow on Wednesday provided the safe combination to John LeMaster, the Sheriff’s Office’s general counsel, who secured a risk protection order that gave the sheriff the authority to seize all weapons and ammunition from Detherow’s possession or property.
Not kept in a safe was a small rocket launcher. That one was “in one of the closets in the home.” And a handgun was found on a mantle. “There was one revolver in the open during the initial incident,” the deputy testified.
Detherow said he hadn’t used the handguns in three years. He doesn’t like the sound they make.
Today he spoke clearly, directly, unemotionally but sincerely, with none of the shrillness he’d displayed in five brief videos he’d made three days before the stand-off. In those videos he’d asked people to gather near his home with bibles or torahs or korans, and in which he ranted–the word describes the behavior–about his son’s arrest in March by sheriff’s deputies, how it violated his son’s and his own Fourth Amendment rights, how Sheriff Staly should be arrested, and how the country was on the road to perdition. (See: “Ex-Marine Had It In for Sheriff Staly As He Compared Son’s Arrest to Donald Trump’s in a ‘Dying’ America.”
Today he conceded that he had said and done some of the viler things authorities described, but attributed them to “satan” and his psychotic. He disputed the claim that he’d taken out his penis and masturbated in front of deputy Marsan, saying his penis “popped out” of his overalls and he wasn;t wearing underwear. He was just trying to pop it back in.
Marsan herself had testified at length about what she’d witnessed, in sum restating much of what she’d reported in Detherow’s arrest report. Detherow testified that when he requested medical attention at the scene, Marsan only drove him around after a long wait to where paramedics had taken up positions. The paramedics asked him cursory questions and concluded he was declining medical attention, which Detherow disputed. He said he was “ignored.”
At the jail, he was evaluated and Baker Acted at SMA in Daytona Beach for six days, lending credence to some psychological issues. Perkins said he was not discounting those issues. But he had to rule on the state’s motion based on the evidence presented today, not on speculative or unverified claims. In essence, he was gently chiding the defense for not having provided that evidence to buttress Detherow’s case, if indeed he has a history of treatment at the VA, of psychotic issues, and PTSD.
“I am just in a fact and information vacuum,” the judge told the attorneys. “I need information about the cause. If this is related to a PTSD incident, the cause of that, the treatment that’s being provided, the likelihood that it’s going to happen again, things along those lines so that we can fashion some type of a pretrial release that addresses those concerns and those issues. So do I think he needs to remain in custody permanently? No. But I do need more information so that we can fashion something that makes some sense.”
To that end, the judge is leaving the door open for a subsequent hearing where the defense can present that evidence. Meanwhile, Detherow remains at the Flagler County jail on no bond, alongside his son, Hunter Detherow–also an ex-Marine–who was arrested in March on charges of stabbing one man and beating another after he was offended by remarks one of them had made about Jesus. The younger Detherow is being held on $300,000 bond.
“In the meantime, I don’t want this to get any worse,” Perkins said.
JOE D says
This man PROBABLY does have PTSD, but that’s the LEAST of his mental health issues, given the behavior listed in the two prior articles in FlaglerLive. Just because he’s subdued NOW, doesn’t mean he’s stable enough for community release. His blaming the DEVIL, and not taking responsibility for his behavior that day, doesn’t bode well for his taking responsibility in the future. He certainly APPEARS ( in my years of experience as a Master’s prepared Clinical Nurse Therapist, and Certified Nurse Case Manager) he is still a danger to himself AND others at the moment. I HOPE they can get his mental health evaluation done, and (LIKELY) some psychiatric medication on board (although there is little way of ENFORCING his medication compliance if HE doesn’t feel he needs the medication once released). That’s typically the problem with chronic (?) mental illness in the community. Clients either think they are “cured” or don’t have a mental condition to begin with…and stop taking the medication, resulting in a cycle of crisis events and either Psychiatric hospitalizations or incarcerations (or BOTH).
I HOPE with treatment and possibly medication, he can (eventually) return to the community…but the GUN and other weapon stockpiles in the home concerns me MUCH more than his exposing his genitals.
I HOPE someone was wearing a body camera during that event, since the suspect is ALREADY denying the events as reported by the law enforcement officers….it might be therapeutic for him to actually SEE and HEAR his behavior during that crisis.
Bill Boots says
“Marsan herself had testified at length about what she’d witnessed, in sum restating much of what she’d reported in Detherow’s arrest report. Detherow testified that when he requested medical attention at the scene, Marsan only drove him around after a long wait to where paramedics had taken up positions. The paramedics asked him cursory questions and concluded he was declining medical attention, which Detherow disputed. He said he was “ignored.”
“Detherow testified that when he requested medical attention at the scene, Marsan only drove him around after a long wait to where paramedics had taken up positions.”
“Marsan only drove him around after a long wait to where paramedics had taken up positions.”
“drove” “positions”? Could writer explain what’s meant?
FlaglerLive says
It was not a clear way to try to stay away from another bit of jargon used in this context: paramedics had “staged” a distance from the crime scene, meaning they’d parked—taken up positions—at a safe distance from the scene.
Bill Boots says
War creates beasts like this man, i’v known many over the last 60+ years, while our Military based manufacturing industry creates Millionaires!
Keep our warriors out of others soil/wars!
PeachesMcGee says
Unless a Marine has a dishonorable or bad conduct discharge, they were referred to as a Former Marine by the media.
From the USMC: “There truly is no such thing as a former Marine, as after service our Marine Veterans are just as dedicated to advancing our Nation and defending its ideals. If you become one of us, the fight in you will always be a part of our Nation’s moral cause.”
“Veteran Marine” or “Prior service Marine” can refer to anyone who has been discharged honorably from the Corps. “Retired Marine” refers to those who have completed 20 or more years of service and formally retired or have been medically retired after less than 20 years service.
Me says
He needs to be sentenced to a medical facility to get help, sitting in a jail is not the answer.
Endless Dark Money says
the real question is how much money the health system extract from this individual, thats the system our elders built. mental health is joke in this nation. Hell even one of the two presidential candidates is a convict, maybe this guy should run for office maggats will love him plus he served in battle instead of using daddys money to find a way out of it like orange jesus did. Maybe ron will waive his wand at it him since rules dont apply to gop members apparently.
Skibum says
It is so easy for a person like this to avoid taking responsibility for his own behavior, and instead put the blame on…