The mental state of man in the Plant City Brandson

Plant City – The 911 call came shortly after midnight on July 31.

Shawn Gossett sounded childish and scared. He showed dispatchers to a 5 hectare property outside the County Line Road near Plant City, where a mobile home was devoured by flames.

“It's out of control,” said Gossett. “There are people in the house.”

The 25 -year -old gossett, who has intellectual disabilities, said he didn't know what the fire started.

“When it started, I had forgotten that something burned because I didn't smell it at the time,” he said. “And I was carved – and I was currently shouting at because it wasn't my fault.”

A recording of Gossett's words is part of a bunch of records, including more than 300 pages of documents that were recently published by the Hillsborough public prosecutor.

Prosecutors say that he had deliberately started fire, in which four people were killed who shared the house with him. The records create the most detailed, albeit incomplete portrait, which has so far been complicated by questions about gossetts mental condition and whether it is able to understand the legal proceedings.

Last autumn, his defender asked a judge to reject the case and argued that Gossett was so disabled that he was not exposed to legal proceedings. Prosecutors disagree. They believe that he can be restored in competence and they want him to commit himself to a safe hospital until he can return to court.

An arson fire

Firefighters and Sheriff drove shortly before 12:30 p.m. to the property near the Polk County line, which was barefoot in the grass and set a cord bag, a yellow Labrador named Buster next to him, as if flames devoured the mobile house. He observed how fire cars raised and firefighters brought the big hoses out to attack the fire. The roof collapsed.

Up to the fire, it was almost the entire double and detached scales. Firefighters Jessica Bowman (26) and her brother Joseph Clites found in a southeastern bedroom, 48, who was lying on the floor. They found Jessica's mother Judy Foster (70) near a living room and Jessica's husband Chase Bowman (30) in another bedroom that was under a couch and a chest of drawers.

Her cause of death was found as smoke inhalation and thermal injuries.

Firefighters also found the remains of four dogs in the main sleeping room, one of them in one box.

The MPs learned that Gossett lived in the house for about two years after moving out of his father's house.

He stayed in a so -called “room in Florida” in a police report, but it was hardly more than a closed veranda with a bed, a file cabinet and other objects.

When the firefighters worked the scene, the MPs gossett placed in the back of a patrol car.

He told the MPs that he was on the phone with friends when the fire started. He said he thought it came from his window air conditioning system. He panic he went to Chase and Jessica. He said someone told him to get water. He said Joseph Clite woke up, went outside and shouted at him before going back into the house and closing the door behind him.

He said that he had a few sporty shoes, a mouth protection, crazy gloves, sunglasses and his bag packed and went out of the house before he called 911. He took busters with him.

Hours after the fire, a fire investigator examined the charred debris. Increasing patterns were most intensely in the area of ​​the closed veranda at the northern end of the house, which served as a gossetts bedroom.

A V-shaped damage pattern on a two-draw cabinet pointed to the center of the room. It was there, between the cabinet on the one hand and charred fraudsters on the other, that the fire started, the investigator closed.

In the midst of the debris there were a charred yearbook by the Plant City High School, a fan, a burned blanket, a paper from a cigarette box and a spring from a handheld.

Change stories

In the hours after the fire, Gossett spoke to MPs in detail while they were sitting in a patrol car. The investigators later found that he was unclear about many details.

He had announced most of his life that he had ADHD, fear and bipolar disorder, but was not diagnosed because “he does not like doctors”, a deputy wrote in a report. He said he had prescribed medication, but stopped taking it.

He was adopted when he was 5 years old. He had visited the Plant City High School. He knew Jessica Bowman from the Special Olympics in Plant City, where he played flag football. Long before the fire, he had moved in with her and her family, but they didn't let him stay in the main part of the house.

He said he played with a plastic lighter when his blanket accidentally caught fire. Some details about what Gossett said are reduced from the reports of the sheriff. But an affidavit says that he has changed his story.

He said he didn't want to live at home anymore, but Foster did not let him go because, according to the report, she was the payee for his disabled checks.

After the affidavit, he had thought about leading the fire all day. He didn't want to kill her, he said, but wanted to scare her. He knew that when the house was burned down, he could withdraw with his father. He described the light of a paper crop and a box and observed how the flames spread, while the fan spread, according to the affidavit.

In the following weeks, detectives spoke to several people who were committed to gossett. His father, Clyde Gossett, said he didn't believe that his son was mentally disabled, but said he would bite and kick if he got angry, according to a report by the sheriff. He had to hold him back and call the police.

He also said that he had to remind his son to be gently with the family dog ​​because he would press him so hard that it was prepared. He believed that gossett had to happen to “snap”.

A young woman who was friends with both gossett and Jessica Bowman said that he was “common” in the high school and bullied her and others. In a written explanation of detectives, she said Gossett hit five dogs in her head until they cried. She also wrote that Bowman told her that Gossett wanted to kill her, her husband and dogs.

She continued to write that Bowman showed her a bruise in which gossett struck her. She wrote that Bowman asked her not to tell anyone because she was afraid of gossett.

He was jealous of her relationship with Chase Bowman, wrote her and didn't want to die alone. She also wrote that Gossett had asked her to help him find a friend.

Competence interviewed

Gossett has lingered in prison since the end of July when lawyers and doctors assess his mental state.

A few psychological experts who examined him found that he had neurocognitive, intellectual and emotional functional disorders. His IQ was between 55 and 65, which indicates mental disability. His mental performance does not make him able to understand the indictment against him or the legal proceedings after the defense.

According to the experts, his condition is permanent.

However, the public prosecutor quoted a third expert who held gossetts IQ with 72 in the border area. This expert kept gossett, could be restored to competence within three to six months if they receive proper training.

In a court newspaper, the deputy prosecutor Katherine found that Gossett could “clearly articulate what happened” and apologized for the lies.

A judge will hear arguments on the application for discharge on Friday.