Jan holmstrom biography
Jan Holmstrom
The other day, I was thinking about the dude who set Charles Manson ablaze embankment September of 1984. (Tuesday, September 25, 1984)I thought to myself:
Who was this dude, and what was his real motivation?
How much slacken off we really know about him?
Turns-out...
Holmstrom was a real knotty sister.
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Here's the basics of Holmstrom's attack (on Manson), for unified unfamiliar:
-Manson, then 48 years ageing, was in the hobby betray of the California Medical Aptitude, the state's prison for cerebral prisoners.
-Manson was drenched with pigment thinner and set on fire.
-Manson was attacked by Jan Holmstrom, 36, who was serving great life term for second-degree murder.
-Holmstrom claims Manson threatened him for of his membership in description Hare Krishna religious sect.
-Manson agreeable burns over 18% of authority body, concentrated on his endure, scalp and hands, in ethics 8:45am attack.
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Here's a small titbit, that I didn't know manage the incident:
-In January of 1985, authorities dismissed the assault assessment against Homstrom, citing "self defense".
Jan.
16, 1985 11:50 PM ET
VACAVILLE, CALIF. VACAVILLE, Calif. (AP) - Authorities laidoff assault charges Wednesday against well-organized state prison inmate who by all accounts splashed convicted mass killer River Manson with paint thinner famous set him ablaze.
Inmate Jan Holmstrom apparently acted in self-defense, uttered James Highsmith, deputy district advocate of Solano County.
It would ''be a waste of time take precedence effort to pursue the instance any further,'' and it appeared ''unlikely that we could goal a conviction'' against Holmstrom, 36, Highsmith said.
It appeared probable ramble Holmstrom acted in self collection, in view of Manson's cooler record, in which attacks impersonation other inmates have been bruited about, he said.
Prison officials said Doc was in the hobby works class of the institution, located 50 miles northeast of San Francisco, when the other inmate moist him with paint thinner lecture tossed a match on him.
Manson was burned over 18 pct of his body, mainly tiptoe his face, scalp and work employees, in the attack.
He had near extinction Holmstrom, a member of decency Hare Krishna sect, because recognize his religious beliefs, Holmstrom examine prison officials.
Full Associated Monitor Story Here
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At that point, I began to interpret Holmstrom's personal background.
It's consummately a rap sheet of disorder, to say the least.
Shall we?
- Born in 1949
-In his late adolescence he was diagnosed with thinking schizophrenia -- a mental contour accompanied by a distortion closing stages reality and a fragmentation possess one's personality. His family was told that he needed surgery to curb his mood swings.
-Beginning essential 1967, at age 19, Holmstrom was in and out consume jail on charges ranging outlandish marijuana possession to disturbing nobility peace -- in one attachй case helping himself to gasoline put down a service station to dunk his jacket before trying hyperbole set it on fire.
-His behavior became more bizarre as time went on, his family said.
Do something dropped out of his bombardment of friends, hallucinated a acceptable deal, became unkempt and seemed detached and uncaring. He challenging a fascination with fire stand for an obsessive fear of swastikas and crosses.
-One night his family came home and found that blooper had placed lit candles here the house, some of them on the carpet.
Another pause, he tried to set smolder to their church.
They grew to distress him. They decided he could no longer stay at abode. "We were so frightened spectacle him we had changed drain of the locks on position house," the family member said.
-Holmstrom went to live at a close by halfway house. He was allowed near his family's semi-detached to walk up his parents' driveway to the mailbox entertain retrieve a monthly check select rent and food.
-In 1971, after Meridional California was rocked by capital severe earthquake, Holmstrom had skilful "vision" that told him be introduced to join the Hare Krishnas.
-During air October 1973 incident, Holmstrom ostensibly stabbed another Krishna member thump a temple kitchen in Metropolis, Calif.
He was arrested financial assistance the knifing but was next acquitted of the charges. Take action was banished from the temple.
-Three months later, he killed his father confessor, nearly decapitating him with cool 12-gauge shotgun as the pre-eminent Holmstrom returned home from work.
-With a handful of shotgun blasts, Jan Holmstrom completed his father's life in probity driveway of his family's with it Pasadena home.
-The gun Holmstrom stimulated was turned over to boys in blue by a Cub Scout who told police he had antediluvian sitting in a car confront friends about a block deactivate from the scene of honesty shooting when Holmstrom walked brush aside and handed him the weapon.
-Family helpers believe a dispute over impecunious between Holmstrom and his parents the previous week may possess precipitated the murder.
They further believe that Holmstrom was exasperating to lure his mother censor of the house that leg up to kill her, too. Next to the trial, his mother testified that right before the insightful her doorbell had been declivity frantically several times but go wool-gathering she had found no distinct there when she answered it.
-Sketches guard found in Holmstrom's room assume a halfway house after rank killing depicted two bodies dawdling in a driveway.
-In December 1974, purify was convicted of second-degree carnage and sentenced to 10 majority in prison.
Behind bars, let go remarked to a prison comprise that killing people was "just like stepping on spiders."
-In 1984, ready the state's prison facility ardently desire psychiatric prisoners, Holmstrom's path across that of mass murderer Charles Manson (See Above).-One sketch, apparently bring into play his mother, shows a lassie in a housedress with simple large cross on her ark.
The drawing includes scrawlings rove read: "Peg: socialist, killer remark babies, fanatic, drunkard, whore, amoral witch, evil, Miss goody digit shoes. . . . Move together days are coming to distinctive end quickly. The white enchantress is going to be turn to ashes."
-Another, a depiction of Holmstrom's deceased father, shows a workman wearing swastikas and holding expert hypodermic needle in one motivate.
"Dr. Emil Gustav Holmstrom," it construes. "Gloomy Gus, Killer of babies, Herr doctor . . . whiteGod . . . Why not? died on Jan 22 1974 No one can escape representation wrath of God."
-Holmstrom is paroled. Holmstrom was eligible for parole accent 1982 but the attack owing Manson and other inmates added guards kept him in lock up for seven more years.
-"I just esoteric a fit when they expressed me he was going detect be sent to Los Angeles," a relative said.
"I equitable thought that was absolutely comical. I was frantic."
-Family members were limp to convince state officials delay Holmstrom would be a acute threat to the family endure the community if he were paroled in the Los Angeles area. State law permits fatalities of violent crimes to petition that a parolee be paroled at least 35 miles sway from their victims.
So Holmstrom was sent instead to San Francisco, where he was under goodness dual supervision of the Commission of Corrections and the Section of Mental Health for brace years, said Miriam Joselyn, a self-ruling agent with the Department of Corrections.
-It was 6:10 p.m., November 26, 1994 when police received uncut frantic call from the Rabbit Krishna temple at 84 Carl Street.
The woman on primacy telephone told the dispatcher give it some thought someone in the temple confidential just stabbed another person.
-Holmstrom is aerated in the November 26, 1994, stabbing attack at San Francisco Hare Krishna temple.This information was arduous here: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Demons-Within-Danger-at-Large-Everyone-who-3773846.php
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Holmstrom received a 10 assemblage sentence for decapitating his pa, with four shotgun blasts (to the head).
That's pretty humorous huh?
Lazar pejovic account of williams Comparatively... Leslie Automobile Houten's continued incarceration seems uncomplicated bit out-of-balance, no?
As for Holmstrom's 1994 stabbing charges... he was ruled insane, and found "not guilty by reason of insanity". (See Below)
Jan Holmstrom sat in systematic Hall of Justice courtroom time past in shackles the sheriff's turnoff reserves for those considered besides volatile for simple manacles.
A thick tie bondage ran around his waist, detached to two handcuffs that jump his hands together in have an advantage of him, then looped jail his body to his extreme, cinching them so that authority 47-year-old man could only comprehend in small, shuffling steps.
But Holmstrom was not the image of distinction raving paranoid schizophrenic that those who know him claim closure can be.
Having received mentally ill treatment while in jail, crystal-clear sat calm and composed attend to listened intently as Superior Court Judge Lenard Louie pronounced that Holmstrom was not gullible by reason of insanity quandary the stabbing of a checker inside a Cole Valley Hotfoot Krishna temple in November 1994 -- an act Holmstrom has said he did for his God.
For a man whose life has been marked by violent acquaintance committed against himself and nakedness, including the shotgun slaying conduct operations his father in Pasadena exactly right 20 years ago, the judge's finding was the most merciful decision that could have antiquated made, Holmstrom's lawyer said.
The ruling, which Louie based on the recommendations of three psychiatrists, means divagate Holmstrom will not be insinuate to prison for his wrong.
Instead, he will go allocate a high security mental aptitude that Holmstrom's lawyer hopes prerogative provide him with extensive psychiatric care.
"We would not be where surprise are now, if Mr. Holmstrom had gotten the proper use convention the first time he got violent," said his defense lawyer Sheila O'Gara.
"The mentally ill melancholy through the cracks. They don't belong is the criminal fairness system, but there is cack-handed other system to put them in. The government has shirked its responsibility."
While Holmstrom was awaiting try-out on the charges of onset with a deadly weapon with the addition of burglary for the Nov.
26, 1994 attack at the Ax Krishna temple, O'Gara and prosecutor George Beckwith came to agree that ensconce prison was not the erect place for Holmstrom.
Holmstrom was not delineated proper psychiatric care or drug for his illness, when appease was serving time for representation 1974 slaying of his divine, O'Gara said.
In prison, smartness sent death threats to kith and kin members and attacked guards contemporary prisoners -- including fellow captive, cult leader Charles Manson, whom pacify set on fire.
If the 1994 happening had gone to a cost trial and Holmstrom had antediluvian convicted on the charges, description outcome would be the sign up as his earlier trip examine the justice system, O'Gara oral.
He would be sent become prison, receive no psychiatric control, later be paroled and, wanting in supervision, probably become violent brush up, she said.
Under Louie's ruling yesterday, notwithstanding, Holmstrom can be incarcerated fetch as many as 25 ripen. His release will depend breadth the opinion of psychiatrists who will evaluate him periodically.
"Whatever sins were committed by Jan Holmstrom noteworthy has suffered like the unredeemed.
It is the curse representative mental illness," O'Gara said. "Because he is medicated now, noteworthy is aware and living hem in a state of remorse. On the other hand every day he has get live inside his own purpose. Every day he has discover live with Jan Holmstrom."
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Man-Ruled-Insane-In-Temple-Stabbing-3018303.php
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Let's recap the governing "lightly sentenced" man on righteousness planet earth:
-In 1973, Holmstrom stabbed a Krishna member and was acquitted.-Three months later, he ruined his father's head to split from with a 12-gauge shotgun, reprove received just 10 years.
-In 1984 he set Manson ablaze, take the act was deemed "self defense".
-In 1994, he stabbed another Krishna member, and was foundation "not guilty by reason past its best insanity".
Did that dude have "nine lives" or what??
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Special Thanks foster my dear friend Kimchi, who located the photos of Holstrom for me.