The Shadow
Sen. Creigh Deeds of Bath County will be featured on “60 Minutes” Sunday night — talking about the tragedy involving his son in November.
The segment will feature Deeds being interviewed by CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley.
In the interview, Deeds will talk about the events that occurred Nov. 19 and what he sees as a failure in the state’s mental health care system. He says the broken system led to the death of his 24-year-old son, Austin “Gus” Deeds.
In a segment of the “60 Minutes” interview aired Thursday night on the CBS Evening News, Deeds said: “I really don’t want Gus to be defined by his illness. I don’t want Gus to be defined by what happened on the nineteenth. He was a perfect son. It’s clear the system failed. It’s clear that it failed Gus. It killed Gus.”
The senator was interviewed by Pelley in Richmond.
Gus Deeds was know as a talented bluegrass musician and a gifted student. He was valedictorian of his graduating class at Bath County High School and went on to attend the College of William & Mary. After he turned 21, he began suffering from delusions and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Gus Deeds had dropped out of college and returned to Bath County to live with his father and step-mother. In November, the senator became concerned that his son would kill himself.
Deeds obtained a court order and Bath County sheriff’s deputies took Gus Deeds to Bath Community Hospital in Hot Springs, where he underwent a psychiatric evaluation.
Officials at the hospital were unable to find an empty psychiatric bed. The court order expired after six hours and Gus Deeds was released and returned home with his father.
“He was coming home,” Deeds said in the interview segment aired Thursday night. “And I was concerned that if he came home, there was going to be a crisis.”
Deeds continued: “I didn’t know what was going to happen, but the next morning, you know, I felt like there’d be a confrontation … but I had no reason to think there would be violence.
“And — but, you know, I got ready for work, and I went out to the barn to feed the horses, and Gus was coming acrosss the yard and he was — I said, ‘Hey, bud, how’d you sleep?’ He said, ‘Fine, I turned my back and you know, I turned my back, had this feed thing in my hand and he was on me.”
Gus Deeds began stabbing his father, inflicting 10 wounds in all. A relative found a bloodied Deeds on a roadway near his farm. He was eventually airlifted to the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, where he underwent surgery for his wounds.
Police found Gus Deeds dead inside the family home near Millboro Springs. Police said he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The senator returned to Richmond earlier this month for the General Assembly session, determined to bring reform to the state’s mental health system.
He’s introduced legislation to extend the lenth of emergency court orders for mental patients from six to 24 hours. Deeds has also filed a bill to create a computer database so mental health officials can access an instant listing of every open psychiatric bed in the state.
The full interview with Deeds will be aired on “60 minutes” Sunday night at 7 p.m.
Locally, the interview can be seen on WDBJ-7 in Roanoke.
