A Family’s Tragedy : The Lynches of Scotland Try to Cope With Madness, Murder in America

HIGHLAND, Calif. —  Joe Lynch quietly shuffles into a conference room at Patton State Mental Hospital. The self-confessed killer’s dark eyes instantly lock on his younger brother, Mike, who has traveled from Great Britain for this family reunion behind locked doors and barbed-wire fences.

The brothers exchange short nods of recognition and break into nervous smiles as they sit at a table near a wall of dirty, tinted windows overlooking the hospital’s landscaped grounds.

It is the fifth time in seven days that Mike Lynch and his wife, Pam, have visited Joe Lynch at Patton. The brothers’ parents, Jim and Mary Lynch, also have come from Errol, Scotland, but on this recent sunny Wednesday they are too exhausted and remain at a friend’s home in Mira Loma recovering from the long journey.

Joe Lynch, 45, dressed in the standard khaki-colored slacks and short-sleeved shirt, quizzes his brother about their 77-year-old parents’ health.

“They just needed a bit of rest,” says Mike Lynch, 43. “They’ll be along again soon. This whole trip’s been a lot for them to handle, you know.”

Joe Lynch, his head cast down, both legs bouncing and his right hand twitching uncontrolled, agrees. He asks what sightseeing the family has managed to do.

“We’re not here for that,” his brother responds. “We’ve come to check up on you, remember?”

Joe Lynch, a former Santa Ana resident, has been housed at the hospital since early this summer when an Orange County Superior Court judge sentenced him to the 100-year-old medical facility for the criminally insane.

The Scottish-born man was convicted in May on two counts of second-degree murder for the January, 1989, bludgeoning deaths of his wife and infant daughter. During his trial’s sentencing phase, Judge Francisco Briseno ruled that Joe Lynch, previously diagnosed as a manic-depressive, was not guilty by reason of insanity and sent him to the hospital rather than state prison.

Although authorities connected with the case believe Joe Lynch will never be allowed to leave the hospital, his family hopes to have him transferred to a psychiatric facility in Scotland under a 1984 international agreement between the United States and Great Britain on sentenced prisoners.

“If the conditions are right and everybody agrees, we think it’s the best thing to do,” said older brother John Lynch, 46, a musician living in Germany who has taken the lead in coordinating the family’s efforts.

John Lynch said the family has talked to British diplomats in Los Angeles and government officials at home, but no formal application has been made to either the U.S. State or Justice departments, which both need to approve any such transfer.

“We want what’s best for Joe,” he said. “There’s no denying the seriousness of the situation that Joe’s in, and we’re not asking to have him freed before he’s cured.

“All we’re saying is that if we can find a place in Scotland that’s as good as Patton where Joe’s treatment can continue, then of course we want our brother home.”

John Gardner, vice consul for the British Consulate in Los Angeles, said the Lynch case could be caught in a technical snarl because the international agreement might not apply to mental patients. Gardner said he has “sent the question to our Home Office for review” but has not received an answer.

If no transfer arrangements can be made, family members said, Joe Lynch faces a life at Patton isolated from his family because their limited finances cannot cover frequent visits. In fact, the Errol villagers organized several fund-raising events to sponsor the parents, brother and sister-in-law on their trip last month.

“There appears to be sympathetic views on both sides of the Atlantic regarding Mr. Lynch, so there is a glimmer of hope that something can be done,” Gardner said. “It’s really a tragic case.”

Born Aug. 5, 1945, Joe Lynch is the third of four sons and one daughter raised by his conservative, Catholic, working-class parents. The family lived in Dundee on the east coast of Scotland until the early 1960s, when it moved to Errol.

Errol, a town so small that it’s not on most maps, lies halfway between Perth and Dundee in rolling farming country near the banks of the River Tay. Edinburgh lies about 40 miles to the south, while the Grampian Mountains and the Scottish Highlands rise to north and west.

For decades, Errol’s townsfolk numbered in the hundreds. Even with modern housing construction, today’s population is only about 2,500, and it remains a one-policeman village with narrow streets, one two-room hotel and many slate-roofed cottages and shops that date back to the early 1800s.

“It’s the sort of place where everybody knows everybody and everyone else’s business,” said the Rev. Douglas Main, the village minister.

Jim Lynch, a small but stocky man with well-worn hands, worked as a signalman for the local railroads in Dundee and Errol, earning enough money to send all five children to Lawside Catholic School in Dundee.

Joe Lynch, much to his parents’ pride and delight, excelled at his studies. Once, the local newspaper even did a short article on his scholastic abilities, his mother said.

“He was always the clever one in the family,” she said during an interview at the Mira Loma home. “He was always reading and never gave anyone any trouble.”

In 1968, he graduated from Dundee College of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, the first in his family to earn a college degree.

After working with a local electronics firm in Wales, Joe Lynch in 1972 bid farewell to his family and Scottish homeland to pursue his budding computer electronics career. Working for Crossfield Electronics, he traveled throughout Europe for several years before being sent to Australia in 1976, where he met and fell in love with his future wife, Helen, then 22. The two were married three years later in Dundee.

In 1980, the company transferred him to Canada to help install and trouble-shoot the company’s computerized printing equipment for clients. That same year their first daughter, Holly, was born.

“He was so proud of his family,” his mother said. “He flew us out to see them. He paid for everything, wouldn’t hear of having it otherwise.”

About four years later, another transfer sent the family to Santa Ana. In 1984, a second daughter, Angela, was born. Joe Lynch once again insisted on sending for his parents on an all-expenses-paid trip.

Neighbors who lived in the same condominium complex on 1st Street recalled that he was indeed a proud and devoted family man. He served as a coach on his eldest daughter’s soccer team and was involved in the children’s school activities. He also served on the board of directors for the complex’s homeowners association.

There were always family picnics and outings planned, including vacations and trips home to Scotland.

It was during those visits home to Errol that Joe Lynch’s manic-depressive behavior first began to surface, according to doctors familiar with the case.

His outgoing, talkative behavior, his desire to shake hands with everyone in the village and his insistence on buying rounds of beer for everyone at the local pub was a big turnaround for the normally quiet and reserved man.

Villagers and his family shrugged it off as a man wanting to show off his success, but psychiatrists who have examined him believe they were warning signs that something was going wrong inside his mind.

But it wasn’t until Joe Lynch’s 1986 trip to Mexico City to see the World Cup Soccer playoffs that his illness deteriorated into a serious mental disorder, according to court and medical records.

While walking through the city, past ornate buildings and the yellow arches of a McDonald’s restaurant, Joe Lynch suddenly believed he had died and gone to heaven. He told Dr. Kaushal Sharma, a forensic psychiatrist, that he was so overjoyed he jumped into a fountain and smacked his head against the stone foundation.

He abruptly left Mexico before the soccer finals concluded and somehow made it back to Orange County. Once home, he flew into a rage and attacked his wife for unknown reasons, bruising her face and nearly breaking several of her fingers.

According to police reports, Joe Lynch was taken into custody for a 72-hour psychiatric evaluation. He was officially diagnosed as a manic-depressive and kept in the hospital on lithium medication for an additional two weeks.

Joe Lynch’s illness, which is known medically as bipolar disorder, is characterized by cycles of extremely high and low physical and emotional activity, according to Sharma, who testified for the defense during his trial. The disease appears to be caused in part by a chemical imbalance in the brain, but what causes the imbalance is unknown, he said.

The disorder also is possibly linked to genetics, he said, and most patients begin to show symptoms when they reach their 20s or 30s.

“In manic, or high, stage, a person has a huge amount of energy, as if the body is producing its own speed,” Sharma said. “They might not sleep for days and can be quite aggressive and dangerous.

“They have no sense of reality and even someone as small as Mr. Lynch can exhibit tremendous strength. They have no perception of pain or the limitations of their own body, and no regards for safety.”

During the depression, or low, cycle, patients are sluggish, with virtually no physical or mental energy. They may even be suicidal, he said.

Lithium has proven successful in containing patients’ high and low cycles, he said, but in some patients, including Joe Lynch, it has a side effect of making the person progressively more lethargic.

Former co-workers who testified during the trial said that after Joe Lynch returned to work following his hospitalization in 1986, he would simply sit at his desk doing nothing but staring off into space.

Despite his mental problems and its impact on his work and marriage, the couple had their third daughter, Natalie, in December, 1987.

By September, 1988, Joe Lynch was at a near standstill at work. His usual outstanding personal and work habits were gone. After receiving several poor performance reviews, he decided to stop taking his medication.

He began to perk up a bit, but, unknown to Lynch, without the lithium he would soon find himself completely out of control.

The exact details of what happened inside the Lynch household late on Jan. 16, 1989, may never be known. Police believe that sometime before midnight Joe Lynch exploded into a violent, manic episode after staying home from work and exhibiting strange, erratic behavior during the day.

He picked up an empty champagne bottle and crushed his 35-year-old wife’s skull with at least 10 blows. The couple’s infant daughter also was mortally wounded in the head; she died a few days later at a nearby hospital.

After the killings, Joe Lynch put the champagne bottle in the dishwasher and turned the machine on. He carefully removed his red wool sweater, blue dress shirt, brown pants, boots and underwear. He folded his blood- and brain-splattered clothing over his baby’s unoccupied crib and got into bed with his now-terrified daughter Holly to tell her that the girls’ mother was dead. He then called police.

At 12:40 a.m. on Jan. 17, veteran Santa Ana Police Officer Donald Fox arrived outside the home at 721 W. 1st Street in response to Joe Lynch’s 911 call.

The front door was slightly ajar and Fox entered the room to find a nude Joe Lynch motioning for him to look at his wife’s dead body.

Fox, a Vietnam War veteran with more than 10 years of police experience, tearfully recalled on the witness stand that the victims’ wounds were so severe he thought someone had shot them at close range with a shotgun.

Joe Lynch later confessed to killing his wife, but to this day he steadfastly denies having harmed his 13-month-old daughter.

The impact of the crime, described by Santa Ana police officials as one of the worst in the department’s history, was devasting to Joe Lynch’s close-knit family.

His father suffered a stroke within a few weeks of the news and has yet to fully recover. His mother has never fully accepted the reality of the situation and thinks her son will be coming home in a few weeks, family members said.

John Lynch said he has developed an asthma breathing problem brought on by the constant pressure of the situation. His career as a rock musician has been put on hold while he helps sort out his brother’s estate and legal affairs, he said.

Joe Lynch’s surviving daughters now live with the killer’s sister, Mary Shand, in the northern Scotland town of Elgin. Although the girls are adjusting to their new life, both show signs of stress and have problems coping with what has happened, family members said.

The rest of the family also worries that they too might be afflicted with the mental disorder or have unknowingly passed it on to their own children, they said.

Family finances, meanwhile, have been virtually depleted with huge telephone bills, medical problems and trips to California. Had it not been for the generous support of the Errol villagers, John Lynch said, his parents might never have seen Joe Lynch alive again.

“We’re very grateful to everyone in Errol,” he said. “We just didn’t have the money ourselves.”

Marilyn Stewart, owner of the village’s Central Hotel, said she helped organized the fund-raising efforts “because the Lynches are a well-respected family here.”

The townspeople “couldn’t believe what happened,” she said. “We’re all still in a bit of shock. We can’t understand it. Maybe Joe traveled too far from home this time.”

Back at Patton, Joe Lynch tells his brother he is optimistic that one day he’ll return home, although he’s not sure when.

“I think I’ll have to go soon because that’s where my daughters are and I want to be close to them,” he said.

The lithium medication he’s now taking regularly is helping him, he said, as is the private and group counseling sessions.

The food is not too bad, he said, and there’s a computer at the hospital that he uses to play video games. He likes to spend time reading novels and newspapers in the hospital library and his favorite exercise is swimming in the pool.

He skirts around the issue of why he’s incarcerated at Patton. The closest he comes to talking about the killings is telling his brother “my big mistake was going off the medication.” The names of his dead wife and daughter are never mentioned.

He is delighted with the digital watch his family bought for him out of the money raised by the people of Errol. The watch’s tiny key pad allows him to make all sorts of time computations, he said.

The rest of the visit is filled with small talk about the hospital, other patients and activities there. Joe Lynch said he lives in a small dorm-like setting with three other men. Each has a single bed, a locker and a chair.

“Patton is a nice place,” he sums up. “The staff has been very helpful to me with this bipolar thing ever since I got here.”

After about two hours, the brothers stand up and embrace each other under the watchful gaze of a matronly hospital escort. The couple watch as Joe Lynch is taken down the long hallway back to his room.

Joe Lynch pauses a moment, turns and timidly waves goodby.