Jeanine Benca and Chris Metinko

STAFF WRITERS

Article Launched: 10/21/2007 03:00:36 AM PDT
              

Peter Mantas can't stop shivering.

He has been in a cold sweat since 3 a.m., when, in a flurry of lights and sirens, four squad cars showed up at his San Ramon duplex to inform him there was "a problem" with his family. Now it is just after 7 a.m., and the estranged father is being told to follow officers into the room at the Danville police station where his 16-year-old son, Andrew Mantas, sits in shackles.

Since Peter last laid eyes on Andrew a year and a half ago, something has gone terribly wrong with the boy.

He is snapping his head around and can't focus on his father's questions. He won't stop asking for cigarettes. "What was that?" he repeats every so often to no one in particular.

That was Nov. 6 -- almost a year ago.

All Peter knew was what police had told him -- that his ex-wife, Dimitra, the mother of Andrew and his two daughters, was dead.

Earlier that morning, Danville police had discovered 43-year-old Dimitra Mantas bludgeoned to death in her Danville townhouse. Less than three hours later, police arrested Andrew in Blackhawk, where a security guard had spotted the teenager driving a stolen golf cart around the gated community. He had blood on his shoes and a steak knife in his pants pocket, according to police reports.

The next day, Nov. 7, Andrew was charged with murdering his mother. Dimitra Mantas, a former special-education classroom aide and church volunteer, has been described by those who knew her as "soft-spoken,", "kind," "motherly" and "a wonderful role model of a loving Christian."

Nearly 12 months later, looming questions remain about Andrew and his apparent psychological descent before his mother's killing, why she was killed that night and whether her death could have been prevented.

Authorities, meanwhile, are struggling to decide the fate of the murder suspect, now 17, whose questionable sanity has left him in a sort of legal limbo -- a common scenario for violent crime suspects believed to be suffering from mental illness.

Andrew, who is in custody at Contra Costa County Juvenile Hall, has not yet entered a plea, and lawyers are trying to determine whether the teenager, who refuses to stay on his prescribed anti-psychotic drugs, is competent to stand trial.

A hearing is set for Dec. 14 to determine whether juvenile hall officials should be allowed to forcibly administer medication to Andrew.

Sources close to Andrew describe him as a tortured soul.

Andrew's attorney, Daniel Horowitz, says his client is harassed by voices and hallucinations he believes are real. Court records show the one-time Monte Vista High School student has tried more than once to commit suicide since his arrest.

The high-profile case has resurrected concerns, prevalent since the 1999 Columbine shootings, about the need to identify at-risk adolescents before they commit violent crimes. The case also underscores the scarcity of treatment options for psychologically disturbed juveniles after such crimes have occurred.

"There aren't a lot of options out there," said Kathi McLaughlin, co-chairwoman of the Contra Costa Mental Health Commission and chairwoman of the commission's children's committee.

Since his arrest, Andrew has been confined to the juvenile hall in Martinez, where mental health advocates say he is not receiving proper medical treatment.

McLaughlin said a shortage of available mental health facilities, strict admissions criteria and concerns about hospital liability make it difficult to place a minor with a violent criminal history into a more specialized mental facility. In Contra Costa County, the only hospital with a psychiatric ward licensed to treat juveniles is John Muir Medical Center in Concord.

"It's not just a case of can they take that person, but will they?" McLaughlin said. "These facilities have to think about the rest of their patients too, and what's best for them."

A troubled history

Many of those who knew Andrew before the killing say they were shocked by his arrest.

Though he had a history of serious behavioral problems -- including documented substance abuse, expulsions from two schools in two years and several run-ins with the police -- the teen had no history of violence.

"I didn't believe that Andrew would have had the ability to do anything like that, ever," Peter Mantas said. "Even with that harsh persona he would put on, he had this warm heart."

Peter, who at the time of Dimitra's death was barred from seeing his family by a restraining order based on Dimitra's assertions that he was abusive, says Contra Costa County's family courts are at least partly to blame for what happened to his ex-wife. According to Peter, the courts ignored warning signs about Andrew's behavior, failing to order the boy committed to a treatment program despite evidence that he was in need of an intervention.

Court records show Peter had been trying to persuade Dimitra and the court to order Andrew to attend a special out-of-state wilderness camp for troubled teens -- a move he said he believes might have helped save Dimitra's life.

"I was begging for help. (The court) did nothing," Peter said.

For the past year, he has been leading a crusade to raise awareness about what he sees as problems in the courts.

Doctors who have spent time with Andrew say the teenager is probably suffering from schizophrenia, said assistant district attorney Dan Cabral.

Perhaps the most complex of all mental health diseases, schizophrenia is also one of the most debilitating. Symptoms include disordered thoughts, cognitive impairment, warped perceptions and hallucinations.

If stabilized with anti-psychotic drugs, some schizophrenics can lead relatively productive lives. But if left untreated, patients may descend deeper into psychosis.

It appears Andrew, who met with a court-appointed therapist five times in June and July 2006, may have received too little treatment, too late.

Multiple sources including family members, friends, school officials, family court mediators and court records confirm that the teen had begun smoking a great deal of marijuana and using crystal methamphetamine -- two drugs that have been linked to psychosis.

Studies dispute whether drug use may actually trigger schizophrenia in people who are genetically predisposed to developing the disease or whether excessive drug use is itself a symptom of schizophrenia.

Experts agree, though, that substance abuse can increase the risk of violence among anyone, mentally ill or not -- a strong case for intervening in adolescent drug use early on, said David Shern, president of Mental Health America.

Other studies suggest that violence among schizophrenics may be the result of unrelated disorders or childhood problems that were present before the psychosis set in.

A bright, 'angry' boy

There had been clues that Andrew was headed for trouble.

In April 2005, he was arrested with two other teens on suspicion of demanding money from younger children and threatening to batter them. He failed out of Monte Vista High School that year and the following spring was asked to leave Venture Independent Study School in San Ramon. At the time of his mother's death, he was enrolled again at Monte Vista.

A counselor at Monte Vista told a family court mediator that Andrew had been "disrespectful, defiant, tardy, had assaulted other students and refused to work in class," and that his older sister had informed school counselors that she and her sister were afraid of him, according to court records.

Gary Curley, a teacher who worked with Andrew at Venture, said that when the teenager first arrived at the school, he earned passing grades and appeared to be "a reasonably bright young man."

"He was absolutely coherent and lucid and very articulate -- there's no question about that," Curley said.

But within a few months, Andrew stopped showing up for class, and Curley said he came to think of him as "an angry, self-centered young man who didn't have any concerns for his mother."

On one occasion, Dimitra broke into hysterical sobs in front of Andrew and Curley, begging her son to shape up, and Andrew simply got up and walked out of the room, Curley said.

Dimitra's sister, Sonya Kalinikos, tearfully described her sister as "a good soul."

Though the two talked several times a day and considered themselves "best friends," Dimitra never said anything about Andrew that could have foretold what was to come, Kalinikos said.

"I think she was definitely in denial about Andrew," said one longtime friend of Dimitra's who asked that her name not be used.

Family in turmoil

Both natives of Illinois, Peter and Dimitra moved with their children to Danville in 1999. Like his wife, Peter was, and still is, active in the Greek community at the family's church, Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension in Oakland.

Church members say that Dimitra, in particular, was a tireless and enthusiastic volunteer.

But behind the closed doors of their Swallow Court condominium, the Mantas family was in turmoil, as evidenced by interviews with former friends, relatives and a mountainous stack of family court records.

By fall 2006, the eldest daughter, Christina Mantas, was the only member of the family still in contact with Peter after asking to be removed from the restraining order when she turned 18.

In court filings, Dimitra accused Peter of being "extremely hurtful" to Andrew and for exacerbating the boy's "feelings of anger and sadness." She said her husband was violent, abusive and that he terrorized the family with his "fits of rage," including an incident in which he hit Andrew with a car, according to court documents.

Court records also show that the family was in a financial crisis and that Peter, who at the time of his wife's death was trying to start a Web-based company, had a spotty employment record.

Quietly intense, Peter appears at times to be close to tears when he speaks about his ex-wife and his son.

He says he loves and misses Dimitra and denies ever intentionally hurting his family. The restraining order, he says, was Dimitra's way of coping with years of turmoil in their marriage, financial stress and, especially, the couple's increasingly fierce disagreements over how to handle Andrew, who had become unmanageable.

"I knew he was headed down the wrong path," Peter said. "She thought I was being too hard on him."

Peter says Contra Costa County Commissioner Josanna Berkow, the family court judge who presided over most of his and Dimitra's child custody battle, unfairly kept him away from his family by upholding the restraining order on tenuous grounds and ignored key evidence that Andrew was in need of residential treatment.

Berkow declined to be interviewed.

Court records show that in May 2005, court mediator and family therapist Sue Mayo submitted a report to the court stating that Dimitra "appears to downplay the extent of Andrew's troubles" and arguing that "Andrew needs treatment. Both parents need to be involved in any counseling for Andrew as well as in co-parenting counseling."

In response to Mayo's report, Berkow appointed Dr. Randy Kolin to evaluate Andrew for substance abuse issues and to assist in repairing his relationship with Peter, whom the boy refused to see.

But Dimitra was unable to get Andrew to keep his appointments with Kolin, court records show, and no follow-up was ordered by the court.

The following year, in February 2006, child custody evaluator and therapist Debbie Katz submitted her report, in which she describes Andrew as "a very high-risk adolescent."

"I am further concerned that mother minimizes Andrew's negative behaviors and struggles with setting limits with him," Katz wrote.

In her assessment, Katz referenced a report submitted the previous year by Kolin in which he recommended that Andrew enter a residential treatment program immediately.

"Andrew presented as a very high risk depressed adolescent with a past history of drug use and no regard for authority and no concerns about his future," Kolin said, according to Katz's report. "He has complete disregard for his mother's authority and called her an (expletive) in front of me."

According to court records, Berkow responded by appointing family therapist David Heckenlively to assess Andrew for placement in a wilderness camp and treatment center for troubled teens.

E-mail correspondence between Heckenlively, Dimitra and Peter from spring and summer of 2006 show that Dimitra remained steadfast against sending Andrew away, believing it would be best to give him one more chance at home.

Arguing that wilderness camps work only when both parents are on board with the concept, Heckenlively in May submitted his recommendation to the court that Andrew remain at home on a probationary basis while attending therapy sessions and receiving academic tutoring in the fall.

In a final e-mail to Dimitra dated July 2, 2006, Peter wrote, "Dimitra, it is my belief that Andrew needs help from the people at the Wilderness Camp. ... I believe that Andrew is a smart kid that has a kind heart but is being misguided by his environment.

"I'm pleading with you to work with me to intervene while we can. In 17 months, we will not be able to do anything for him and I'm fearful that we will lose our son."

Less than four months later, Dimitra was dead.

'I'm hearing voices'

Anecdotal evidence suggests Andrew's mental health had been unraveling before Nov. 6.

Two days before Dimitra's death, she brought Andrew to Cathedral of the Ascension, where he told the Rev. Tom Paris that he was hearing voices and believed he was possessed by demons.

"I said, 'Listen, if this is the problem, bring him here tomorrow. I'll talk to him, but make sure he's in some counseling,'" Paris said.

Like most of the family's acquaintances, Paris said he had always known that Andrew was troubled, but he believed his problems were emotional in nature, possibly related to the family drama. At their meeting, however, Andrew did seem to appear unwell.

"He said, 'I'm hearing voices,'" Paris recalled. "I said, 'How long have you been hearing voices?' He just stared off into space."

Witness statements suggest Andrew was not in his right mind the night of his mother's killing, including ramblings that someone was trying to kill him and that he wanted to slit that person's throat.

When police, responding to neighbors' reports of "eerie, bone-chilling screams," arrived at the crime scene at 1:22 a.m., they found a steel bar lodged under the handle of the front door, making it appear as if Dimitra had been trying to keep someone out of the house. As police walked through the home, they noticed a dining room chair overturned in the bathroom -- a sign of a possible struggle.

When investigators reached the bedroom, they discovered Dimitra's lifeless body lying at the foot of the bed. An orange aluminum bat with blood smeared on it was on the ground near her head, and furniture and papers littered the room's floor.

The police would catch up with Andrew a little more than three hours later.

According to both Peter and Horowitz, the attorney, Andrew continues to hear voices. He is out of touch with reality, has tried to commit suicide and believes his mother is still alive, Horowitz said.

Doctors' reports are not conclusive about whether Andrew is competent to stand trial, said Cabral, of the district attorney's office.

Andrew has repeatedly refused to be interviewed by a court-appointed psychiatrist who was appointed in November to evaluate him, attorneys on both sides said.

Because the teenager is refusing to cooperate, the court doctor has depended on medical records to determine that there is a "reasonable probability" that Andrew is incompetent, Cabral said.

Arguing that the findings are ambivalent, Cabral earlier this year asked that further psychiatric evaluations be done.

Although he acknowledges that Andrew may ultimately belong in a mental hospital, Cabral says it is important that the teen achieve at least minimal competency so he can enter a plea of insanity and be tried.

Lawyers on both sides say they hope the right combination of drugs will make Andrew at least lucid enough to enter a plea in court.

But efforts to get the teenager to stay on his medications have been unsuccessful. It is a task made more challenging by the inadequate mental health offerings at Juvenile Hall, Horowitz said.

The attorney said he is working on getting his client transferred to a secure mental facility for adults, where he will be able to receive specialized medical treatment while he awaits trial.

"We need to get him out of the twilight zone that he is in right now," Horowitz said.

more coverage

Bay Area News Group's Frosene Phillips and KRON 4-TV's Vicki Liviakis assisted in the preparation of today's articles. For more coverage, see a special report tonight on KRON's 9 p.m. newscast.