Judge Rules Luke Ingram, 21, Legally Insane at Time of Brutal Killing of His Grandfather; Family’s Pain Unravels

In the first hours of Nov. 9, 2022, 19-year-old Luke Ingram brutalized his 85-year-old grandfather and retired federal civil servant Darwin Ingram, killing him, and attacked his own father, Clint Ingram, on Clermont Court in Palm Coast. Soon after, authorities knew that the murder and other charges would likely not stick. The violence–wanton, savage, incomprehensible–was not the work of someone in his right mind. Something had failed Ingram, and it as not just his mind.




By the time the case reached Circuit Judge Terence Perkins for a ruling on Ingram’s sanity in a bench trial this morning, the conclusion had long been foretold. Assistant State Attorney Jennifer Dunton and the defense attorney for Ingram, Aaron Delgado, had no disagreements: Ingram, who suffers from schizophrenia, was legally insane at the time of the attacks, as much victim of a mental health calamity of many dimensions, not all his own, as he was the perpetrator of unspeakable acts that broke a family. The thousands of pages of documentation Perkins reviewed and the testimony he heard this morning, including from two psychologists, buttressed the facts.

So no one was surprised that the trial was more of a brief, 45-minute formality. Aside from checking off the legal boxes required before an insanity defense is ratified, it was more of a non-sentencing sentencing hearing that gave family members a chance to express themselves no differently than if they were giving victim-impact statements. Ingram sat in court next to Delgado–as lucid and calm as any ordinary 21 year old might be, as he has been without issues, at the Flagler County jail since late 2022: he’s stayed on his medication, as he had not the days and nights leading up to the attacks.

The Perkins ruled, finding Ingram not guilty by reason of insanity on all six counts, including what would have been two life felonies–first degree murder and rape with a weapon.




The records that I’ve seen suggest that this didn’t all start on November 9thn, that it was a condition that developed before then, was diagnosed before then. I accept the experts opinion with regard to the existence of and diagnosis of schizophrenia, for Mr. Ingram, or Schizoaffective disorder, as Dr. Pritchard indicated,” Perkins said. He agreed with the finding that Ingram met the definition of “criminally insane,” and committed him to a secure facility for treatment and stabilization.

Perkins spoke to Ingram directly: his treatment in a hospital setting won’t be much different from that of a jail setting, he told him, at least at first. “They’ll be evaluating you on a daily basis,” the judge told him. “They’ll be adjusting your medications as necessary to make sure that you’re responding appropriately in that regard. There is no set deadlines with regard to any of this. So you may move quicker or slower.”

He also made clear, at least implicitly, that something Darwin Ingram’s eldest daughter had said on the stand–“and now Luke has to spend the rest of his life in an insane asylum”–is not correct. He may well go on to a “step-down” facility, the judge said, or a series of step-down facilities that may eventually find him, like another former Flagler County resident who committed a similar killing of his own father a decade and a half ago, living in a halfway house, mostly autonomous, with few controls, assuming the court allows it. (See: “Patricidal Richard Dunn Is Allowed Out of Psychiatric Hospital and Back to Halfway House.”)




“The whole idea is we don’t punish someone who’s mentally ill,” Delgado said. “The judge found him not guilty by reason of insanity. He’s not morally, legally culpable for what he did. That’s the determination. Our society doesn’t punish someone who’s not in their right mind. So the next step is, how do we safeguard” the community. That’s why the judge found Ingram not guilty, but dangerous and requiring what amounts to incarceration in a state hospital for now.

“So now he would go to the state hospital, they will step him down internally, and at some point, they’ll say, Okay, it’s time for him to go to like a different level of commitment,” Delgado said. “Then there’s a review proceeding for that. But that can be six months or six years. I may not even be practicing when it happens next. But it could happen in an expedited fashion. By all accounts, well medicated, he’s very compliant.”

There’s few issues at the jail, for example–“some non compliance, not a lot,” in the words of Jennifer Dunton, the prosecutor. “There’s been adjustments to medication.” Ingram has had a tendency to think he did not need to be on medication. That’s what’s triggered grave issues before, which “all lends itself to the dangerousness,” Dunton said.

For all that, the evidence of Nov. 9, 2022 that the prosecution summarized for the court is no less sinister, and the evidence preceding it was revealing, as with a Secret Service report of Ingram’s arrest in Washington, D.C., when he breached the security perimeter of the White House in another delusional episode. The two psychologists who concluded in independent reports that Ingram was insane at the time of the killing were on standby in case the court had questions.




Before family members spoke, Perkins asked Ingram to stand up before him at the podium and asked him his age and what level of education he completed, questions Ingram answered clearly and immediately. The judge then asked him: “Tell me in your own words why we’re here.”

There was a five-second pause. “Because,” Ingram said. There was a four-second pause. “Because I killed my grandfather and,” there was another pause, six seconds this time as Ingram searched for the words, “we’re here to–show that I was not in the right mind when I was–there for a while, I wasn’t in the right mind.” The distancing use of the as opposed to my right mind was in itself revealing. The judge as he does with all defendants, spoke to Ingram directly, respectfully, explaining the proceedings step by step before Dunton had three family witnesses speak in turn.

The witnesses were all thankful for the State Attorney’s Office, the Sheriff’s Office and particularly jail staff for–as Luke’s father put it–“treating my son with kindness and understanding his disease.” The words echoed even those of Delgado, who said the State Attorney’s Office early on recognized the right direction the case should take.

“There’s times you fight, and I’m certainly happy to fight, and then there’s times when there isn’t anything to fight about, and you just try to do it with as least collateral damage as possible,” Delgado said, “and as much dignity for everyone as possible, dignity for the defendant, dignity for the survivors, dignity for the deceased. And I think that’s what the state and I were able to accomplish here today.”

Darwin Ingram’s son, Luke’s uncle, an attorney, had prepared a statement that put in words the extent to which the violence of Nov. 9 radiated in innumerable directions. “Family and friends are devastated. The Palm Coast community will forever be scarred,” he said, before detailing what had never been said or published publicly before about the “brutal attack,” and summarizing a distinguished life before the killing.




“Luke’s attack was savage and prolonged. My father was alive when Luke inserted a metal rod inside that pierced several vital organs,” he said. “The metal rod was lodged so far inside my father, it was only discovered by the medical examiner during the X ray autopsy. He chewed my father’s ears and his lips. He crushed my father’s skull. He broke his ribs and covered my father’s body and extensive bruising. Luke’s extreme violence and sexual assaults were shocking. I will never understand how a human being is capable of inflicting such violence on another human. My father fought for his life. However, at 85 years old, he was no match for Luke’s youth strength and rage. He attacked and nearly killed his own father who is my brother.”

Darwin Ingram had served “a distinguished career as a US diplomat with the US Department of State, traveling to corners of the earth promoting democracy and the rule of law in developing countries, using his accounting and CPA license on behalf of the US government,” Darwin’s son continued. “While cleaning out his home office I found a handwritten note on Air Force One letterhead from President Jimmy Carter, congratulating my father for his coveted Asia assignment in the Philippines following his overseas service in Central and South America. My father, Darwin, was a peaceful, loving man. He was patient, caring, nurturing. I know he saw the good in people, especially family.”

And he had maintained a humane demeanor until the end. He had retired to Palm Coast with his wife and the couple built a home on a canal as they watched seven grandchildren grow, among them Luke, who’d end up living with his grandparents, on and off, after his own parents’ divorce when he was 3. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2020. He refused to take the medication. His mother did not believe the diagnosis and did not support the treatment, Darwin’s son said.

“My father paid the ultimate price his life for Luke’s Failure to follow the medically prescribed treatment,” he said. “So society has witnessed that Luke’s mental health condition is real and renders him violent, deviantly violent. Schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder is an incurable mental disorders.” While fewer than 1 percent of schizophrenics are violent, Luke, his uncle said, is in that class.

“So Luke, sane or insane, you took Poppy from this earth before he was ready to go,” Luke’s uncle said. “One week after the murder I visited you in jail a few hours after Poppy was cremated. I will always remember what you did. However, for my own peace of mind, I chose to forgive you that day. May You make the best of what remains of your time on earth.”

Disclosure: Aaron Delgado is a member of the FlaglerLive Board of Directors. He was not contacted or interviewed, on background or for the record, in connection with any previous hearings or steps in the case, nor vice versa, until a brief interview–the substance of which was quoted in this article–on the courthouse steps following today’s trial.