Residents anxious about decapitator's care

By TONY WALL

West Auckland residents claim mental health authorities are not properly monitoring a man who once cut off his landlady's head and cooked it in an oven.

And they accuse staff of covering up the fact that James Ferguson has reoffended - killing and mutilating two dogs and a cat while living in Glen Eden.

In Sydney in 1980, Mr Ferguson, now aged 55, killed his landlady, Laurie-Jeanne Callagher. Convinced she was a witch, he cut off her head, placed it in her oven and turned the oven on.

He was deported to New Zealand in 1983 and is understood to have been in and out of psychiatric units ever since, living in flats and halfway houses.

After he killed the animals, in 2001, Mr Ferguson was taken to the Mason Clinic, Auckland's secure psychiatric unit, where he now lives as a restricted patient.

He still has contact with the community - he is released each day to work at an organic farm in Herne Bay and has been spotted shopping in New Lynn.

Mason Clinic director Dr Sandy Simpson said Mr Ferguson's "relapse" (the animal killings) was "very troubling" and resulted in his recall to hospital, where there was a careful review of his care.

The Herald has learned that Mr Ferguson wrote to the pet shop where he got the animals, apologising for killing them.

"My medications have since been changed and are now much more effective, so I look to the future with hope and confidence," he wrote in the letter.

But Glen Eden residents say they were shocked when, a short time later, Mr Ferguson was back at a local hardware store. After a run-in with a work colleague he was removed from the area, but was seen alone at LynnMall a few weeks ago.

Residents, whose first contact with Mr Ferguson was three years ago when he joined the Glen Eden Protection Society bid to save the local supermarket, say he surprised them when he stood up at a meeting and admitted he had killed someone.

A psychiatric team was supposedly supervising him, but he had gone off his medication, became progressively distressed and dishevelled, drank heavily and spent many hours at a local nightclub.

After he did not turn up to work, he was found wandering in a cemetery in a disoriented state, and when psychiatric staff went to a warehouse where he lived alone they found the mutilated pet corpses.

It is understood that police and the SPCA were not notified.

Dr Simpson said he could not comment on whether the authorities were informed.

He said he was aware that there were community concerns about Mr Ferguson "and we're sensitive to them".

He said Mr Ferguson was well, was being treated and was properly supervised when in the community. A lot of thought had gone into his care.

"He has spoken openly at community and international conferences about his experience of rehabilitation and the problems that he suffers and the incredibly hard and difficult road he's gone down to be as well as he can be," Dr Simpson said.

"Many people who meet him would confirm he has an illness that has been profoundly difficult for him over the years."

It is understood Mr Ferguson has regular tests to check he is taking his pills.

Mr Ferguson declined to speak when approached in Herne Bay this week, but he has spoken openly about his illness before.

After he was found not guilty of murdering Ms Callagher on the grounds of insanity, he told the court that psychiatric patients should be warned "of what can happen with careless administration of powerful and mind-bending drugs".

"In all the years I have been under psychiatric care, not once have I ever been schooled as to my responsibilities as a patient," he said.

He later said on an Australian 60 Minutes programme that he had to keep taking his medication so as not to revert to the state in which he killed Ms Callagher.

Asked if he could guarantee he would stay on it, he said: "We are doing our best to make sure it will not happen again."

In 1996, Mr Ferguson had another run-in with the law, when he was charged with reckless driving causing injury and refusing to give a blood sample after driving his car through a red light on Dominion Rd and colliding with another vehicle, almost killing the driver.