Last fall, Michael Hayes made his latest failed attempt to convince a judge that he was no longer a danger to others.
Nine psychologists or psychiatrists testified that he is no longer a danger to others and does not have any mental illness. One testifying for the state said that he still had some personality problems but could be released under certain conditions.
A judge ordered Hayes committed for another year, in what victims' families said appeared to be the closest he's come to getting out. Karl Knudsen, Hayes' attorney, and David Sipprell, a prosecutor, have tentatively agreed to have this year's hearing at the end of August.
Since Hayes has been committed, he has fathered two children, divorced his first wife and mourned his second wife, who committed suicide.
He is estranged from another son, the one his first wife was pregnant with when she left him in July 1988, after he began behaving erratically.
Little has changed in Hayes' life in the past year, Knudsen said in a recent interview.
Hayes has passes so that he can work off the Dix campus and can visit his girlfriend and their two children for up to seven nights at a time.
"He continues to be marvelously well and doesn't need to be in the hospital," Knudsen said. Hayes declined an interview request made through Knudsen for this story.
"He says, ‘Thanks,' but he's already said everything there is to say from the witness stand, under oath -- how sorry he is and how he thinks about it every day and how he tries to prove himself as a person and tries to make amends," Knudsen said.
■ Dan Galindo can be reached at 727-7377 or at dgalindo@wsjournal.
com
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