The Northumberland Nightmare: When Justice Ignores Mental Illness (Paperback)

~ Jr. Paul L. Wegkamp (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

On the morning of August 13, 2001, Chad Wegkamp, a former honor student, woke up and decided to rob the bank across the street from the Sheriff's office. Severely mentally ill, he was desperate to secure the money for an operation that he felt he needed to return to normal. Shouting obscenities, he managed to rob the bank without a weapon and then eluded the Sheriff's deputies on his way home. What would transpire next is a story that is beyond belief. It is the true story of people within a rural county criminal justice system, who were more than willing to discard an eighteen-year-old boy for the rest of his life.

Product Details

• Paperback: 289 pages
• Publisher: Infinity Publishing (January 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0741418479
• ISBN-13: 978-0741418470
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,371,220 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Northumberland Nightmare, March 29, 2004

By	bonnie simmons (va,usa) - See all my reviews

This book is something everyone in the Judicial system should read. This could happen to anyone of us with children. I am not saying Chad should not somehow be punished but not incaracated
for mental illness.Mental illness is so misunderstood, we need a book like this to open our eyes a little wider. We should be more concerned with trying to help someone in this situation
than trying to put them away.
I applaud Mr Wegkamp for being able to document this and sharing it with others to digest.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll be stunned., May 31, 2005

By	Aura Mae (Tacoma, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was astonished as this story unfolded. Most of us understand that a person who hears voices and has delusions can not be judged the same as someone of normal mental health. In our rush to put away the bad guys, we forget that some people need to be helped more than they need to be punished. This book will open your eyes to just how blind "justice" can be.

1.0 out of 5 stars Slanderous & Unauthorized, September 2, 2009

By	Chad L. Wegkamp (Glenns, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is about myself and it makes me feel about knee high to a grasshopper, so to speak. Schizophrenia defines about 0.25% of who I am and this book makes me out to be someone that needs to be taken pity upon. I made a mistake and paid for it, simple as that. I learned a lot of life lessons and am a better man today for it. Everyone makes mistakes, but more importantly than the mistake, itself, is the lesson learned from it.

I am a smart, educated, capable, and good person who has fully recovered from the tormenting days long ago that led up to the event talked about in the book. It's something I would like to put behind me, but this book forever stamps that ill eighteen year old who justice supposedly did so fervently wrong.

Too often, crime is forgiven based upon a person's mental state. Where is the line drawn? You'd have to be crazy to commit most crimes to begin with. Is that a reason a person should be completely forgiven and allowed to continue to remain in society? Of course not.

My crime fitted my punishment and I believe my Dad used poor judgment by writing a book with this type of content. It talks really negatively about a lot of people, the local Northumberland judicial system, and puts information that I would at least try to keep private, completely out in the open. Some of the things the Northumberland judicial and police system did, exercised poor judgment. However, to be fair to them, they were pursuing a criminal case and trying to prevent crimes like this from happening in the future.

The judicial system isn't perfect. But then again, neither is anything else on this planet. Your name and reputation in this world are important and I feel my Father was hard at work to serve his own interests in this book and I highly recommend avoiding it.

I'm not mad at my Father for writing this book, but I am disappointed. I don't think I would have wrote the same material about one of my family members. But again, no one walking among us in this world is perfect. People make mistakes and second chances and sometimes more, are warranted in many circumstances. However, in this life a lot of what we get, we deserve. I deserved my punishment, paid for it, and am a better, more upstanding citizen today because of it.

I think there's a lot of truth to what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. I no more want to make my Father look bad in this simple book review, than I would want someone to make me look bad. This book is slanderous because it belittles me as a person by destroying my credibility, although I don't honestly believe that was my Father's intention. I really would prefer to build up what little reputation I have and having a publication like this in existence, doesn't aid that.

I'm doing good now and this is the distant past, as far as I'm concerned. Every day is a new day and it's important we choose wisely the things we say about others and even more wisely, the things we put in print concerning others.