A whiff of imaginary poison gas. Airplanes in the sky. A pink suit that his wife wore to her
daughter's funeral. In the broken-mirror mind of Raymond Tanner, those shards reflected one of the
ugliest murders Ohio has witnessed.
An autposy report on his wife, Maria Tanner, 21, tells the horror story of Valentines Day, 1990 in
clinical detail: ''Multiple stab wounds to head, face, hands, arms . . . number and severity of the
defense wounds to hands and forearms indicate a struggle . . . multiple incise wounds with
decapitation . . . ''
Mr. and Mrs. Tanner were leaving their Fairfield apartment when she went back for a coat. He smelled
gas. Airplanes were watching him. Her pink suit was the secret signal that she was going to have him
killed. So the steakhouse meat-cutter grabbed a knife, cut her head off, bashed it against a car, then
put it on their bed, leaving her body in the doorway.
A neighbor recalls, ''I was outside and I saw him beating her and yelled 'Leave her alone!' But he
kept beating her and when I ran over I saw he was stabbing her, so I ran in to call 911. When I came
back, I looked in the door and saw him carrying her head upstairs. He was covered in blood.''
Here's the shocking part: Right now, he could be sitting on a bar stool or slicing chops in another
steakhouse, released from a Dayton mental hospital.
''One wouldn't necessarily speak of someone being cured,'' said his doctor, Douglas Mossman. ''A
reasonable but imperfect analogy would be high blood pressure. . . . If you take medication, it
statistically reduces the risk of relapse.''
Besides, said Dr. Mossman, Mr. Tanner is no murderer - he's not even a criminal. ''He has not
committed murder,'' he said of the ''not guilty by reason of insanity'' verdict. ''People talk about
insane criminals - they're not criminal anything.''
Mrs. Tanner might disagree. Her family certainly does. And that witness is so sure it was murder,
she's still too terrified to use her name.
''Once I saw someone who resembled him very much, and my whole body went numb. I couldn't breathe,''
she said. ''How can we be sure he won't do it again? If he should be on medication, what if he goes
off?''
Dr. Mossman admitted the side-effects of such medication can be unpleasant: tremors, anxiety. Along
with outside psychiatrists paid up to $300 an hour to examine Mr. Tanner, Dr. Mossman assured that he
is no threat: ''Within walking distance of your office, there are thousands of people who have a
higher statistical probablity of violence.''
In court records, doctors used words such as ''remorse,'' ''remission'' and ''insight'' to describe
Mr. Tanner's progress. They say he had one ''psychotic break'' or ''episode'' of paranoid
schizophrenia, brought on by severe depression after his daughter died of Sudden Infant Death
Syndrome. They found no history of mental problems before 1990.
As early as 1992, one doctor declared that ''there is no evidence that Mr. Tanner is a danger to
either himself or to others.'' But two years later, another psychiatrist said such reports ''gloss
over his potential for violence,'' and warned, ''He continues to wrestle with (and outwardly deny) a
number of unresolved conflicts which are essentially the same as those which were the basis of his
(1990) paranoid - schizophrenic break.''
In July, a judge agreed to reclassify Mr. Tanner. After six years at most-restrictive Level 1, he was
catapulted to Level-5 freedom in just 90 days. Mr. Tanner was ''still a suitable subject for
involuntary hospitalization,'' with a possible ''genetic predisposition to depression'' which could
trigger another ''episode.'' But on Sept. 6, he was transferred from his Butler County treatment team
to Montgomery County (Dayton) ''because of extreme publicity.''
The record includes a curious statement by Dr. Phillip Resnick: ''The third reason I concluded that
Mr. Danger - that Mr. Tanner is not a substantial risk . . . '' I think psychiatrists call that a
Freudian slip.
The thick Tanner file told a grim and gruesome story that gave me an unshakeable case of the creeps.
There was someone in there, lurking behind the ''friendly, easygoing'' patient. It was the Other
Tanner - a dangerous personality who refused medication, became ''hostile'' toward the medical staff,
showed symptoms of paranoia, felt ''frustrated and persecuted'' and was caught smoking pot in 1993 -
in the hospital - although doctors say it's ''foolish and unsafe'' for him to use street drugs.
The Other Tanner once threatened that if Maria left him, ''her parents would find parts of her body in
trash bags all over the road.'' He refused to seek help in 1990 despite ''vehement'' urging by his
wife, sisters, brothers and father. His ''schizoid'' childhood was so uncontrollable, his mother would
tie him to a chair to protect him and others.
So now the psychiatrists have cut the ropes. Dr. Resnick told the judge, ''He personally reassured
me'' he would not use violence again.
Unlike Kentucky and other states, Ohio has no ''guilty but insane'' law to lock up people who are
insane - and criminal.
So if Raymond Tanner starts smelling poison gas again, we have been ''personally reassured'' that he
will take his medication, even if voices in his head tell him the pills are poison too.
But I wouldn't bet another life on it.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. Call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street,
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
