I. Kathleen Hagen

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Dr. I. Kathleen Hagen was accused of a double murder - smothering her parents (Idella Hagen, 92, and James Hagen, 86) with a plastic bag and pillow as they slept in their home in Chatham Township, New Jersey, in August 2000. A month earlier she had returned to her parents' house from her home in the Virgin Islands because of their age and deteriorating health. Dr. Hagen, a woman of substantial means, had cut short a promising medical career in urology in 1987 to move to the Virgin Islands to operate an inn with her second husband.^[1]

A 1973 graduate of the Harvard Medical School, she became the first woman appointed a resident in urology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She was appointed chief of urology at the Rutgers Medical School in New Jersey in 1982. ^[1] ^[2]

1 The Trial
2 The Acquittal and Confinement
3 Visitations
4 Nearing Release
5 Privileges Temporarily Revoked
6 References

[edit] The Trial

The defence argued for an insanity plea. A defense psychiatrist, Robert L. Sadoff, stated that soon after Dr. Hagen returned to New Jersey, her chronic depression deepened because of the two failed marriages, the loss of her medical career, her fears about her parents' health, and her own fears that her depression would lead to institutionalization.^[3]

Both Dr. Sadoff and Dr. Steven Simring, who testified for the prosecution, said Dr. Hagen's depression deepened significantly in August 2000, to the point where she thought she was receiving messages from televisions ads, traffic lights and playing cards. They both also said she also heard a male voice she took to be her father's commanding her to commit the murders, because once they occurred, she and her parents would go to what Dr. Simring called a childlike, magical sphere where they'd regain their happiness.^[3]

Deborah Factor, an assistant Morris County prosecutor, asked the psychiatrists if they considered the patricide-matricide acts of vindictiveness or mercy killings, and they both said no.^[3]

[edit] The Acquittal and Confinement

A New Jersey judge acquitted Dr. Hagen of charges after two psychiatrists testified that the doctor was psychotic at the time. ^[3]

After the psychiatrists agreed that Dr. Hagen had been depressed for years, was delusional during the murders and was now suicidal, Judge B. Theodore Bozonelis found her not guilty on grounds of insanity and committed her to a state mental health institution. ^[3]

Judge Bozonelis did not order a specific term of confinement. But he said he believed that she required long-term treatment in an institution because she is prone to unpredictable bouts of psychosis and is a danger to herself and society. Under the law, he said, Dr. Hagen is entitled to periodic hearings and reviews about her recovery and continued confinement. ^[3]

[edit] Visitations

Reviewing the progress that Dr. Idella Kathleen Hagen had been making at the Travers Complex at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital, Superior Court Judge Joseph A. Falcone in the spring of 2006 approved a treatment team's recommendation that Hagen be allowed up to four, off-campus, unsupervised visits with friends each month.

In November of 2005, Hagen was deemed stable enough to relocate from her private room at the hospital to a transitional-living cottage in the Travers Complex on hospital grounds where she lived with several other women. That month, Falcone permitted Hagen her first unsupervised visit off hospital grounds with a friend to celebrate her 60th birthday.

[edit] Nearing Release

A three-hour court hearing in September of 2006 on Kathleen Hagen's status at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital revealed that she had ratcheted up her efforts to get discharged, and skipped medication last month during a four-night stay in her new house.

Hagen used day passes to see a private psychiatrist in the community who could treat her upon release, hospital staffers testified. And without consulting with her treatment team, she closed on a house in Monmouth, New Jersey with Charlotte Carosh, her supervisor at the time.

[edit] Privileges Temporarily Revoked

In a bizarre twist, Falcone temporarily suspended Hagen's privilege of overnight stays. Falcone became upset when he learned Hagen had, on her own initiative, bought a house in Monmouth Beach, began seeing a private psychiatrist when using her day passes and was caught not taking some medication. ^[4]

Once the hospital approves of the friends and relatives willing to provide 24-hour supervision, Hagen will be allowed to stay at her home overnight twice a month. She also will get two 10-hour day passes. Her longtime friend, Charlotte Carosh, was deemed unsuitable to be her supervisor because she refused in December to tell Hagen it was she who had reported Hagen for not taking all her medicine. ^[4]