History of Duane Owen's mental illness, Part IV
In light of the litigation pending related to Owen’s mental competency for execution, this series reviews the entire history of evidence and documentation related to Owen’s mental illness.
That is the last line of the trial court’s 1999 sentencing order in which the court sentenced Duane Owen to death for the Slattery murder—not the murder for which Gov. DeSantis issued the death warrant.
This series reviews the entire history of evidence and documentation related to Owen’s mental illness. (The last update on the litigation can be found here.) Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. Part III can be found here.
Owen’s execution is currently scheduled for June 15, 2023. The full background of Owen’s case can be found here.
May 2023
Gov. DeSantis signed the warrant scheduling Owen’s execution on May 9, 2023.
Dr. Eisentein’s Report
On May 15, 2023, Dr. Hyman Eisenstein, a neuropsychologist evaluated Owen.1 On May 16, 2023, Dr. Eisenstein issued a report.2 According to the report, Dr. Eisenstein spent six hours with Owen. He found “no faking, exaggerating, or malingering.”
Dr. Eisenstein determined Owen meets the criteria for a diagnosis of Schizophrenia” and “has an ongoing psychotic delusional belief system that has never changed but has only been enhanced and became more embedded over time.”
He further wrote that “Owen’s gross delusions stemming from his schizophrenia are so far removed from reality that they foreclose any possibility of a rational understanding of the reason for his execution.” The report explains the delusions as follows:
Dr. Eisenstein concluded that “Owen meets the criteria for insanity to be executed.”
Commission’s Report
On May 23, 2023, the Commission conducted its 100-minute examination of Owen. On May 24, 2023, the Commission issued its report, concluding “with reasonable medical certainty that Mr. Owen understands the nature and effects of the death penalty and why it has been imposed on him.” However, the Commission stated Owen “was persistent in expressing his believe he [is] a female trapped in a male body.”
He expressed the belief he had captured the souls of his two murder victims by having sex with them and orgasming at the exact moment they were dying, and that the state should not execute him as it was possible the souls of his victims might also die. He referred to his penis as a “hose” that he used to suction out their estrogen, and he denied sexual pleasure during these rape-murders . . . . He stated he felt the victims’ souls enter him, like when you have to go “number two” and experience a fullness, and thus knew '“it had worked.”
He also “claim[ed] he never thought he had killed his homicide victims, although he later acknowledged their bodies had been buried or cremated as they had “expired.”
As this series shows, this story is consistent with what Owen has said since the beginning.
My thoughts are with everyone involved in the warrant and execution process.
ROA at 337.
Dr. Eisenstein’s report is in the ROA starting at page 895.