Travis Frink; PTSD made him murder his mother
The other day, Travis Frink calmly walked into the hospital room where his mother was being treated for an aneurysm, fired a handgun three times into the woman and, just as calmly left the room.
Well, his stepfather, Bob Ferriere, blames the PTSD that Frink caught while he was in the Marines, according to the Valley News.
“As long as he was taking his medicine for PTSD, he was all right. When he got off the medicine, he would go wacko,” Ferriere said in a phone interview. “He beat people up. He would threaten people. He got locked up. He lost his job three or four times because he wouldn’t take his medicine.”
That’s odd, because thousands of Marines who suffer the effects of PTSD didn’t kill anyone, or “go whacko” this week, or the week and months before Tuesday.
“No one in this God-given world knows why he did it. I can’t tell you why he did it,” Bob Ferriere said, adding the only possibility was the PTSD, based on his past behavior.
Ferriere said he believes Frink suffered from PTSD from his time in the Marines and had a traumatic brain injury. But he didn’t know when he served nor how he might have gotten injured. He also did not say what medications Frink was taking.
“He had 10 years of fighting PTSD,” Ferriere said. “When he didn’t take his medicine, he went berserk.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Marines did not respond to a request to confirm Frink’s military service or his injuries.
Step-Dad, obviously a trained clinician familiar with PTSD, “believes” that Frink suffers from PTSD, but he doesn’t know when the guy served or how he caught the disorder. He’s convinced that medication corrects Frink’s PTSD, but he doesn’t know what this magic drug is called – despite the fact that this supposed disorder affects the entire family. I’m thinking that he was messed up before he joined the Marines, if he even was a Marine, and came out the same way.
The Marines just provide an easy-to-understand cause for the media – the same media that runs with the story before they can even verify it with the Marine Corps.
Thanks to H1 for the link.
Category: Dumbass Bullshit, Media
More than likely screwed up before he joined up.
I would grant some credence to the TBI possibly changing him and causing him to kill, if he really has a severe enough TBI. Most people with mTBI aren’t violent unless passingly provoked.
That’s interesting. Even on my worst days, I never have contemplated harming my loved ones. I thought a lot about self-administering 230 grains of lead to the right side of my skull, and almost did a couple of times*, but I never, ever came remotely close to violence against anyone else.
But then again, I’m just a fireman who was diagnosed by a professional, not a probably-never-was-marine shitbird whose family bases their ideas on B-movies of the 1970s, so what do I know?
* It’s better now, for the most part. I still have issues with sleep, but I got over the suicidal thoughts.
TOW. I’m the same way. About 3 years ago I almost suck started a .45. I’d off myself before someone else. I still keep the round that was in the chamber to remind me of how close I came.
Because the article doesn’t mention it – it looks he spent NO TIME in a combat or in combat.
So…the Battle at the Golden Corral?
Yeah, those breaching operations at a heavily crowded and defended buffet on the weekends will scar you mentally.
I remember trying to get through defensive perimeter that was dug in deep.. the 31st Waffle House ‘Heavy hamhock” Auxiliary Brigade….We lost a lost of good folks before we even got within sight of the chocolate fondue fountain…we had to go into retrograde operations and rally back at the soda fountain.
There was a wake of destruction behind us…used plates stacked 15 high, spilled glasses,crushed ice cream cones….the gravy ran deep on the landscape.
We never found Cpl Eugene “chicken wing” Pentwhistle….its probably for the best…we think he was mistaken for a hot wing.
Poor ‘ol “Chicken Wing”, some of them fat chicks ain’t picky when they get real hungry…
Excuse me, Doc, but where do I buy this novel?
Just wondering, because I used to get ‘Doc Savage’ comics at the corner drugstore. I had to hide them from my mother, but she found them one day, along with my Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Supergirl and other comics, and she threw them out. She thought they were trash. Now they’re worth a tidy sum. Don’t get me started on this.
Yeah, how would you like your sister throwing out your Mad Magazines? If I still had them and sold them today, I could afford a mailbox WITH a door. She tried to save my brain/intellect, but judging from my comments these past few years, it was too late.
Hack, I feel your pain. I not only gave away my comic collection but also my football card collection to my younger brother when I departed for Basic in 1980, thinking it was worthless. I had multiple “Rookie” cards for several players who are now Hall of Famers.
I almost cried when I found out what they’re valued at now.
I had ‘SGT Rock’, too, until Ma found it and tossed it. Just sad.
@ Ex-PH2….sadly, my wife blames it on my over active imagination, too much time on my hands, and lack of adult supervision.
Somewhere in my house is an actual hard copy of a Doc Savage novel from the 70’s…..along with a pile of other similar pulp fiction type stories.
Maybe one day I will dump my brain contents onto paper and write something.
Ah, yes. The Golden Corral Chocolate Fountain.
You take your life in your hands if you dare to try to approach it in a heavily crowded and defended Golden Corral buffet on the weekends. And if you somehow manage to survive the encounter, you will never be able to rid yourself of the nightmarish memories of the hellish hand-to-hand combat that takes place during the defense of the Chocolate Fountain. No quarter is given, and none is asked.
A few years ago, I received an e-mail from a prosecuting attorney in Oregon, asking about a veteran who had claimed that I served with him in Viet Nam.
I didn’t remember or recognize the veteran’s name, so I wasn’t able to either verify or disprove that we had served together.
The veteran had murdered his family, and was claiming it was a manifestation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which he’d acquired when he and I were serving together at the Phu Lam Signal Battalion in Saigon.
The attorney wanted to know what conditions were like in Saigon at that time, so I explained as best as I could remember, the good times and the bad times.
The veteran was convicted of the murders, and died of natural causes while hospitalized for an unspecified illness in the infirmary on Death Row.
Some buckets of Chihuahua shit would use the PTSD excuse to try and weasel their way out of a traffic ticket, this punkass has a place in Hell waiting for him.
First, reconnoiter and get the info on the whale. Then, if is as described by stepfaddah, get him!
Bring back the electric chair.
This article says he left the Maries as a corporal in 1993, and had served in Japan and the Philippines. http://wpri.com/2017/09/13/records-show-accused-hospital-shooters-life-was-in-state-of-upheaval/
“Marines”
Japan and the Philippines.
So I wonder where Travis says that he caught that raging case of The PTSD.
Olongapo?
Bad Sushi or an overdose of Wasabi?
What really pisses me of is this “diagnosis” by his step-dad.
“Ferriere said he believes Frink suffered from PTSD from his time in the Marines and had a traumatic brain injury. But he didn’t know when he served nor how he might have gotten injured. He also did not say what medications Frink was taking.”
So Bob Ferriere made this statement but yet had nothing to back it up with as to the cause or documentation of Frink’s alleged TBI and PTSD nor knew what medication he was taking? He only “believes” this is what caused him to shoot his own mother?
This Bob Ferriere person (read ignorant asshole) does a grave disservice to all legitimate vets that have been diagnosed with PTSD with his BS.
Way to go, Bob!!!……douche!!
24 years after the fact.
Yeah, this is me calling bullshit.
TBI from one too many pitchers of Mojo, maybe. Or all those combat missions over Shit River.
This dude needs some high voltage.
There are suitable cattle prods for that purpose.
Oh, wait – you meant the other kind of high voltage.
My bad.
The photo of Frink reminds me of that crazed kid playing chess from awhile back…
“The other day, Travis Frink calmly walked into the hospital room where his mother was being treated for an aneurysm, fired a handgun three times into the woman and, just as calmly left the room“. But, his step dad says “As long as he was taking his medicine for PTSD, he was all right. When he got off the medicine, he would go wacko“. Then, “When he didn’t take his medicine, he went berserk.”.
Something here does not compute. If he was “wacko”, and, failing to take his meds, “he went berserk”, how did he calmly walk in to a hospital, and execute his mother, then calmly walk out? Why was he not ranting and raving, if he was “off his meds”? Why wasn’t he swinging from the overhead light fixtures, if he’d gone “berserk”?
I detect the overwhelming odor of bull shit.
Service until 1993. No combat, since he was in Japan and the P.I.
So, I’d have to say no TBI, and no PTSD.
And no, PTSD doesn’t operate on a time release schedule. It doesn’t sit dormant for years and then suddenly make an appearance like a genetic disease would. And you can’t control ANY mental illness by the simple use of a medication, any more than you can cure lung cancer by simply not smoking anymore.
This guy’s step dad is a total moron.
I served with him in 2/3 he deployed to Okinawa and the Philippines. He spent most of his time that I knew him in Kaneohe Bay.
Never even saw the dude get mad.
We were pretty tight for almost three years.
I can’t imagine what could have caused PTSD.