2007-04-19 20:59:55 UTC
Schizophrenic, drug addict son put her through 'hell' for years, then burned down their home
Doug Ward and Frances Bula, with files from Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, April 18, 2007
For years Helga Knippelberg's schizophrenic son demanded that she give him money to feed his drug habit.
She would give him cash or cheques. Often she would borrow money from neighbours. If she refused his request for money, Ronald Knippelberg would regularly threaten to harm her or burn down their large east Vancouver house.
"It's been horrible. No one can imagine," Helga Knippelberg, 74, recalled Tuesday. "I'm not even afraid to go to hell because that man has put me through hell."
Helga Knippelberg, 74, stands Tuesday by what's left of her home of 51 years after it was burned to the ground Monday night by her son, Ronald, 47.
Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun
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Font: ****On Monday night, fire destroyed their house at 1091 East 21st Ave. Ronald Knippelberg, 47, was arrested by police after he escaped the three-alarm blaze by jumping out a second-storey window. He has been charged with arson and uttering a threat.
"I've lost everything, furniture, everything," said Helga Knippelberg, standing beside the ruins of her home, where she had lived for 51 years, the day after the fire.
The German immigrant was accompanied by her daughter, Doris Fischer and a grandson, and embraced by neighbours and long-time friends -- all of whom had watched with horror and fear for many years as Helga Knippelberg struggled with her son's mental illness and his insatiable appetite for drugs.
She said her son was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 17 after being sent to Riverview psychiatric institute by a judge.
He later became hooked on injection drugs while in prison, said his mother. Anger management therapy never worked and he wouldn't take medication.
She described her son as someone "who hasn't a friend in the world."
Doris Fischer said her brother always refused therapy. "He never felt there was anything wrong with him. It was all of us who were the ones who were off."
The mother hopes that her son finally gets the help that he never received before.
"I am hoping that somebody realizes that he needs help. He still has longer to live than I do."
Helga Knippelberg said that on the day of the fire, her son had been berating her for not giving him enough money for drugs. She gave him a cheque, but he wanted some more. He needed another hit of whatever drug he was using that day -- crack cocaine or heroin.
Her son, like most drug addicts, can't accept the word "no," said Helga Knippelberg.
"When they do drugs, they are in a completely different world. It's unexplainable. Unexplainable."
He had already spent about $1,400 on drugs since March 7, when he was released from jail, she added, and had gone beyond the money limit she had set for him.
"He was in a very big need of a fix," said Helga Knippelberg. He demanded that she borrow some money from a neighbour and she refused. She lay down on the chesterfield and he began walking up and down the stairs, appearing more and more hyper.
His behaviour became so worrisome that she decided to phone the police. He had already broken the downstairs phone so she ran across the street and asked a neighbour to call 911 just after midnight.
The police emergency response team appeared and then 38 firemen in 11 trucks.
Const. Tim Fanning said that a police negotiator tried to talk the "very upset, very distraught" suspect into leaving the house. But he had barricaded the door and the police couldn't enter.
Then the suspect set a fire and jumped from a second-floor window, he added. He was taken to hospital, where he is in serious but stable condition.
"His rage appeared to be drug-fuelled," Fanning said.
The police had been to the Knippelberg residence before and were familiar with Ronald Knippelberg.
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Font: ****At the time of the fire, he was already awaiting trial for an alleged break-in on March 29.
Since the late 1990s, Knippelberg has been convicted of more than 10 break-and-enters as well as several counts of theft and possession of stolen property.
While most of Knippelberg's crimes are property offences, he pleaded guilty in 2005 to assault with a weapon after he attacked a woman with a club.
Carlene Robbins, Vancouver's manager of bylaw administration, said the Knippelberg residence was well-known to city inspectors. The file on the property goes back to the beginning of the current system's archives in 1994, and likely before, said Robbins.
Tania Klein, who grew up just behind the house, said that Helga Knippelberg was a "pack-rat" who bought second-hand stuff and kept it in the house.
"It was her way of being around her son," said Klein.
"It was just her way of dealing with Ronnie. It was kind of her phobia. But she wasn't crazy. She was very alert and well-loved by the neighbourhood."
Her property was one of about a dozen that the city considers its most serious "nuisance" properties that require regular checks and cleanups in order to keep them to minimally acceptable standards. The last time city crews cleaned the property was June of last year, when they removed truckloads of junk that had been collected in the back yard, garage and sun deck.
The city will contact mental-health services in the cases of nuisance houses where the owners appear to be on their own, with no family or friends around for support. But, in this case, Helga's daughter, Doris Fischer, spoke regularly to city staff and was trying to convince her mother to move elsewhere, said Robbins.
"Our inspector has been very involved with Helga and her welfare," said Robbins.
Robbins said there are other cases like this around the city.
"We do have a lot of other situations where people desperately need some help. If people are completely on their own, we try to get other resources. But mental health has a really high threshold for when someone is not competent."
Robbins said there have been cases where the city has requested mental health do an assessment because city crews are spending hours and hundreds of dollars trying to keep their property clean and had the team come back and say that they have determined the person is competent and, therefore, they won't intervene.
Vancouver Coastal Health official Laurie Dawkins said the mental health department had been in contact with the woman in the past, but she wasn't necessarily in need in help.
"As with all clients, we can be called in and do assessments and offer services, but, at the end of the day, clients have their own free will," Dawkins said.
"Generally speaking if we felt they were in need of mental health we do have the right to intervene. But if a person wasn't requiring that level of care, we can't force that on them."
VCH deals with requests for mental health help based on the urgency of the situation. If a call was made to 911, someone would likely be dispatched immediately. But if it came through the health authority's referral line for adult mental health, the case would first be assessed by a team of trained psychologists over the phone to determine how critical it was.
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Font: ****Counsellors have a list of criteria, with a key question being whether the client is at risk of harming herself or others if left alone.
If that risk was deemed high, Dawkins said, VCH would respond promptly and might even call emergency services.
If it wasn't, an appointment would be made with the client for the next day or within a week, depending on how serious it was. The onus would be on the client to keep the appointment.
Dawkins said the team gets multiple calls so it has to prioritize them. But if someone takes the time to call in, it's considered important enough to follow up.