MADISON, Alabama - The woman who Madison police shot and killed early this morning after she pointed a pistol at them had a history of mental illness that included being committed to mental hospitals against her will.
Deborah Jo Day, 55, of 111-A Michael Ave., was shot just before 4 a.m. when she raised a pistol at Madison police officers on the 100 block of Michael Avenue, police said. Day was transported by HEMSI ambulance to Huntsville Hospital, where she died.
Police said that they received several 911 calls at 3:49 a.m. about a woman with a pistol walking on Michael Avenue and threatening to shoot her neighbors. Police found the woman walking on the 100 block of Michael Avenue. Officers repeatedly told her to drop the gun, police said. They said that she was shot when she raised the pistol toward an officer.
Sandra Barnes, a neighbor of Day's, said she called 911 after Day started yelling profanities and threatening to kill her neighbors and their children, WHNT News 19 reported.
Barnes told WHNT that she had noticed Day's erratic behavior in the past. Several days ago, Barnes told WHNT, Day took some crackers, dumped them next to a tree and then poured Kool-Aid over them. Then, Barnes told WHNT, Day introduced herself as "Incubus from Egypt."
The television station said that Day's sister contacted the station to say that Day had suffered from mental illness and recently stopped taking her medication. The sister said she visited Day on Friday and noticed that she was acting delusional.
The Madison County Sheriff's Department is investigating. The officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative leave and the department is conducting an internal review.
Court records show that Day was arrested in 2002 for credit card fraud and for writing five bad checks to supermarkets in 2003. Charges against her were dropped in all the cases when she paid restitution to the victims and court fees.
Court records in the worthless checks cases include a report from Dr. Randy Burleson, who diagnosed Day with "schizoaffective disorder."
The U.S. National Library of Medicine defines schizoaffective disorder as "a mental condition that causes both a loss of contact with reality (psychosis) and mood problems."
Burleson's report was a court-ordered mental evaluation of Day to determine if she was competent to stand trial.
The report said that Day told Burleson that she was first diagnosed with mental illness in 1993 or 1994. She was treated briefly at the Huntsville-Madison County Mental Health Center at the time, and was treated there after 1995.
Day said in court documents that she was briefly placed in a psychiatric hospital in Virginia when she lived there between 1994 and 1996, and that she was involuntarily committed to Huntsville Hospital and the North Alabama Regional Hospital in 2002 for mental illness and dangerous behavior.
She said in court documents that she was taking medication for the schizoaffective disorder.
Burleson said that records from the Columbia Peninsula Center for Behavioral Health in Hampton, Va., show that Day was diagnosed with depression and was delusional and paranoid.
Documents show that Day told Burleson that she grew up in Virginia as the sixth of 11 children. She said she studied political science for three years at the University of North Alabama and also studied accounting at the National Career College in Huntsville.
Day said she mostly worked in restaurants and offices until she began receiving disability checks for mental illness about 18 months before the June 30, 2004 evaluation, court documents show.
She said she had been married three times and had two children. Day said she gave the oldest child up for adoption and had never had any contact with the child, documents show. The younger child was raised by his grandmother, she said.
Barry Abston, her attorney in the credit card case, filed a motion for a competency exam because of Day's history of mental illness.
Day, who was also listed as Deborah Jo McBride Day in court records, lived in Hazel Green at the time and had obtained a Sears credit card in the name of her former husband, records show.
A motion was filed to revoke her $1,000 bond in the case because she was arrested on disorderly conduct and resisting arrest charges while out on bond, records show. The motion said she had allegedly "repeatedly threatened the life" of several co-workers and that they feared for their safety.
In an affidavit Day filled out to declare indigency and get an court appointed lawyer, she said she earned $50,000 a year gross and took home $23,800.
She added note that said, "I pay a little bit more to pay off national debit."
Day said on the form that she has $30 billion plus in the bank or in cash and valued her assets at $1 "octillion."
In the debt section of the form, she said paid $1 billion a month on a $9 trillion debt, $10,000 a month on $90 million in charge accounts, and $280 a month for house rent or payment.
Updated at 8:45 p.m. with comments from neighbors and Day's sister.
Updated at 8:48 p.m. with more comments from neighbor.
Deborah Jo Day Affidavit
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