Tuesday evening, Joan and David Becker came to Iowa State to share their family’s story and the story of their son Mark, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.

Mark shot his high school football coach Ed Thomas in the locker room of his home town during a schizophrenic episode.

Joan Becker told the audience, from her family’s perspective, what it was like living with someone with paranoid schizophrenia and how the events she observed led to Mark serving a life sentence in prison.

“As a child,” Becker said, “Mark was active, outgoing, energetic, and was always wanting to learn more.”

Mark was involved in sports in high school, including football. Along with football, Ed Thomas was the Sunday school leader at the Beckers’ church, as well as a close family friend.

“During this time of Mark’s life,” Becker said. “Mark became closed off. He just wouldn’t open up.”

Becker went on to stress to the audience of college students why it is important to pay attention to the people around them and to tell people when they need help.

“Students, don’t stop communicating. There are not a lot of things we would have done differently, but we regret not getting Mark set up with counseling sooner. If you need help, get it,” Becker said.

After working to graduate high school, Mark moved out of his hometown of Parkersburg to start college.

“Mark fell into a cycle of starting college, at first he would do well, but then he would start to hibernate, he wouldn’t go outside, and he would drop out. He dropped out three times, and went through 11 jobs,” Becker said.

Mark decided to move back home, and it was at this time his family started to pick up on more severe behavior. He had started using heavy drugs, and after a long battle, decided to move to South Dakota with his brother to “start over.”

Shortly after moving to South Dakota, Becker received a call from Mark in which he said, “Quit trying to control my thoughts.”

This type of behavior had Becker worried, but it wasn’t until she spoke to her son Brad, with whom Mark was living, she understood the severity.

“When I come home, I don’t know who I’m going to find. Some days it’s my brother, and other days, I don’t recognize who he is, it’s like he’s a different person. He wants to fight me, his body language changes, his entire demeanor is different. I lock my bedroom door at night because I’m afraid of what he might do,” Brad said.

Shortly after this phone call, Mark moved back to his parents house in Parkersburg. As Becker drove Mark across the South Dakota-Iowa border, Mark demanded she pulled over after he heard what he described as a “loud bang”. After looking over the car, Mark returned to the vehicle and said to his mother, “Mom, can you feel the evil? Ever since we crossed the border there has been evil in this car.”

Events like this became more frequent in the time following Mark’s move back home. Becker described the behavior as “in a different world.” Becker describes events such as hearing Mark talking and laughing on the phone in the room next door, only to find he’s not on the phone, but in full conversation, with seemingly no one in the room.

Within months of moving home, Mark experienced his first psychotic episode. It was during the episodes that Mark’s parents would find him screaming about people torturing him and controlling his mind. This psychotic episode led to eight more, of which, county sheriff’s were called four times, he was committed to a mental help facility for one week and a variety of agencies and counselors were contacted upwards of fifteen times.

“He was dealing with these delusions that were very much real to him. We tried to use logic to talk him out of it, but that doesn’t help. Schizophrenia is such a lonely existence,” Becker said.

On June 20, 2009, Mark showed up at a community members’ house with a baseball bat during a psychotic episode which resulted in a high speed chase, and admittance to a mental hospital. Shortly after being admitted, Becker received a call from her son saying he had broke out of the hospital and was locked out of his apartment. Joan and David Becker brought him back to their house that night.

Shortly after David and Joan went to work the next day, they received calls saying, “Ed Thomas was shot, and Mark was involved.”

Mark had showed up at his former high school weight room where he shot Thomas. When Mark killed Thomas, he was not on any drugs, and as Becker says, “He was trying so hard to just be normal.”

“I went into complete shock. My head hit my desk and I just kept saying, ‘this can’t be happening,’ We had been trying so hard to get our son help. This couldn’t be happening,” Becker said.

In the time following Thomas’ death, the Becker family united with their community and the family of Ed Thomas. Their community of Parkersburg had endured an EF5 tornado in 2008, and then endured the death of Thomas a year later.

“A storm can come, and you might not know what to do, but you can lean on each other. That’s what our community did. They were so accepting of us, as was Ed’s family,” Becker said.

Two days after Thomas’ death, Becker spoke to Jan Thomas, Ed’s wife, on the phone. During this conversation, Jan says to Becker, “We know you are hurting as bad as we are.”

At the trial, Mark plead insanity, but a jury found him guilty of first degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison. Now 33, Mark is serving his sentence in Oakdale at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center, where he is learning to live with his condition and learning to detect breakdowns before they happen.

As for Mark’s parents, “We have tried to make something good come out of this tragedy,” they said.

Following Joan’s lecture, she was joined by her husband David on stage to answer questions from audience members. When one audience member asked, “How has this tragedy affected your marriage,” Joan Becker replied, “Sometimes I’m down on my knees crying at the loss of Ed. Steve picks me up, and loves me through it.”

After the Becker’s answered audience questions, a panel of mental health responders was held. Audience members asked questions about safety in our community, what strategies are in place to help those with mental health needs, and what we, as community members, can do to help each other.

The recurring message from both the Beckers and the mental health professionals panel was, “Help people when you can.”

“If you need help, get it, and if someone else needs help, help them. In the face of a storm, love each other through it,”Becker said.