Minnesota man freed from mental hospital murders family with pipe wrench after they take him in: police

A man who was deemed mentally ill after he assaulted his own mother allegedly killed the family who took him in, the Star Tribune reports.

Police say William L. Hillman, 21, beat a mother and son to death in their rural Minnesota home using a large pipe wrench. When interviewed by police while still wearing bloody clothing, he allegedly said that he did it because Dalton McFadzen, 21, and Denise McFadzen, 42, were "weird."

Hillman said he moved in with the McFadzens about six weeks earlier. The night before the killings, he woke up in the middle of the night and doesn't remember what happened next because everything went black.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I did it," he allegedly told police.

Hillman had been ruled mentally ill in June 2016, after punching and threatening to kill his mother. He was committed to the Minnesota Security Hospital for treatment but released in November 2017.

"He does pose a substantial likelihood of physical harm to others," wrote a doctor who assessed him.

Hillman was supposed to take mental health medication but according to police "stopped taking it five months ago," shortly after he got out of the hospital.