Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Cindee Murphy: When the System Fails:Tristan Murphy's Story Changes Florida Law
Sat, 31 May 2025
Send us a textCindy Murphy shares the heartbreaking story of her son Tristan, who struggled with schizophrenia and died by suicide while incarcerated after being handed a chainsaw during a prison work detail. Through her grief, Cindy has become a powerful advocate for mental health reform in the criminal justice system, working to pass the Tristan Murphy Act in Florida.• Tristan developed schizophrenia in his 30s, unusually late compared to typical onset in teens or early 20s• After his first psychotic episode, Tristan spent 8 months in jail before being declared incompetent to stand trial• When properly medicated, Tristan functioned well and maintained a relationship with his children• Florida ranks #1 in mental health needs but #49 in providing mental health services• The Tristan Murphy Act aims to identify mental health issues within 24 hours of arrest and divert people to treatment• Approximately 30% of prison inmates have mental health issues• New treatments like long-acting injectable medications can help people with schizophrenia maintain stability• The documentary "The Warehouse: The Life and Death of Tristan Murphy" is available on YouTubeIf you know anyone that would like to tell their story, send them to tonymantor.com/contact with their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. Please tell everyone everywhere about Why Not Me ? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide The World, the conversations we're having, and the inspiration our guests give to everyone that you are not alone in this world.https://tonymantor.comhttps://Facebook.com/tonymantorhttps://instagram.com/tonymantorhttps://twitter.com/tonymantorhttps://youtube.com/tonymantormusicintro/outro music bed written by T. WildWhy Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
Chapter 1: What inspired Cindy Murphy to advocate for mental health reform?
welcome to why not me the world podcast hosted by tony mentor broadcasting from music city usa nashville tennessee join us as our guests tell us their stories some will make you laugh some will make you cry real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. Hopefully, you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world.
Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me? The World, Humanity Over Handcuffs, The Silent Crisis Special Event. Joining us today is Cindy Murphy. She's here to share the story of her son, Tristan, who battles schizophrenia. Tristan was managing well on medication for some time, but his condition worsened.
Following an incident where he took a pickup truck and crashed it into a pond, he was arrested and sent to Charlotte County Jail. He was later convicted, transferred to the Florida Department of Corrections, and assigned to work duty. Tragically, his story ended with a loss of his life while in jail. This heartbreaking experience has inspired her to advocate for change.
She is now working to support legislation in Florida to help others. Her story is powerful, and we're grateful to have her here to share it. Thanks for coming on.
Yeah, you're welcome.
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Chapter 2: How did Tristan Murphy first show signs of schizophrenia?
I understand Tristan developed signs of schizophrenia later in life, which, as we know, is fairly uncommon. Could you provide some background on how this condition emerged? Were there any early signs in his younger years? And if there was, how did it ultimately develop with his life?
Well, Tristan, he's unusual because he did have schizophrenia, but he didn't develop it at a young age like most people do. Most people start having symptoms when they're in their teens or early 20s. Looking back at the early part of his life, he did have a learning disability, but it was visual motor integration skills. He was really, really good at school.
He was always a little bit of his own little quirky personality, I guess. So as he was growing up, a lot of times we wondered whether he had Asperger's because... You know, he just had a lot of those kind of characteristics and stuff. But otherwise, he was just a normal guy, a normal kid until he was in his 30s, probably about 32, the first time that we noticed some symptoms.
And it just came out of the blue. He was starting his own company. I was helping him with that. We were friends. you know, applying for business licenses and insurance. And he was, you know, just under a lot of pressure from everything that he was going through because he was supporting his wife and her three children, our three daughters from a prior marriage and his two sons.
And, you know, on a very limited and common scale. or no one coming off for a little while there while he was starting his business. So he was just extremely stressed. And I don't know if that's what triggered his first psychotic episode or exactly what it was.
But all of a sudden, he started talking about people were following him or that somebody put a tracking device on his truck, that there was somebody recording things in his addict. It was all related to his starting his new business, that there were people after him who were trying to sabotage him. And it wasn't reasonable. And we kept trying to talk to him about getting help.
And at that point in time, we didn't know. We didn't know he had a mental illness. We thought maybe he
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Chapter 3: What led to Tristan's involvement in the criminal justice system?
had a brain tumor or that there was something physical going on that was causing his delusions and you're just desperately trying to get him to agree to go to the doctor but he was so busy doing everything and it was just like within probably two and a half to three months of us first kind of like saying well this isn't right something's going on that he got caught up in the criminal justice system for the first time when that happened was it something that was minor
Well, no, he had been acting very strangely and things had been getting tense at home. He was raising five kids, you know, ages two to, I guess, 15 at that time. And he just was not acting normally. And his 15-year-old was really alarmed. And... DCF was notified that there were things going on in the home that maybe shouldn't be. There were arguments and just, you know, weird stuff going on.
DCF got involved and decided to investigate and we're glad that they did. We thought that was appropriate and we were hoping that we would be able to get some help from them for him at that time. So we were kind of like, yeah, let's get these people involved so they can help us figure this out. But of course, it didn't turn out that way.
They removed the kids from the home while they were investigating and placed them with us, which then tied us up with all kinds of court hearings.
Now, did you have all five kids?
We had all five. Yes, we took all five of them. And so we had court hearings and all kinds of stuff that were just kind of overwhelming us at that time and diverting us so that we really couldn't move. be as effective as maybe as we'd hoped to be with in helping him. So it was just a crazy time. And one of the things that they ordered was for him not to come to our house.
He or his wife were not supposed to be here because they were still investigating. And we were told if he came to our house that we needed to tell them to leave. Well, one night they showed up at our house and It was for a good reason. He came to tell me that he'd gotten a job and he was so excited about it.
And he walked in the door and, you know, I could tell he was a little off because he was like almost manically happy, you know. Of course, he met me, you know, just as he was coming to the door and I'm like, no, you need to leave. You can't be here.
Because I was so terrified that DCF, if they found out that he'd been in our house even for a short time, that they would take the kids and place them in foster care. So I was just going to be really rigid with their rules. And if they said he wasn't supposed to be here, I was going to adhere to that.
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Chapter 4: What happened during Tristan's first encounter with police?
Wow.
It took another several months before they sent him to down here in Florida. They have forensic hospitals that are solely for the purpose of restoring people's competency. They sent him there, you know, and then back, you know, there's more to all that, I guess, as far as what happened there. and how he was treated while he was in jail and stuff.
But, you know, he ended up basically coming back on medication, which was good. That really helped him because on the medication, he was fine after that. But when he came back, he was desperate to get out of jail. He was not going to plead no contest because he was told by his defense attorney that if he did, he'd have to stay in jail for as long as they wanted to keep him.
It wouldn't be up to him. And they could arrest him anytime they wanted to for the rest of his life, anytime he started acting, you know, weird. And he was desperate to get out of jail because he was losing his children.
He hadn't done the things that the Department of Children and Family Services required him to do while he was in jail as far as taking parenting classes and stuff like that because he was incompetent. He was not mentally well. didn't have access. He was, during that time, kept in an isolation cell on the medical unit of the jail. So he didn't have a tablet.
He didn't have communications with DCF or his attorney. You know, just nothing was effectively done to help him keep custody of his kids. And he knew he was about to lose and they were about to take them away from him and remove his parental rights. And his house was going into foreclosure.
I mean, when something happens like this and somebody's removed from the community, I mean, their whole life blows up.
Yeah, that's unfortunate. Yeah.
And he just felt desperate to get out. So he ended up pleading no contest to five felony charges.
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Chapter 5: How did Tristan's mental health journey progress after jail?
Well, you know, we were just desperate at that time. I mean, the most frustrating part was not knowing what was going on and not having access to him. We did try to communicate with him when he was in jail initially, you know, doing video chats. That's allowed at our county jail. And we tried to set those up and we couldn't communicate with him.
The last time I communicated with him prior to him being held for months and sent away for restoration and all that stuff, He was pacing in front of me on the video screen and would not sit down. I could only see him, you know, from the chest down. And he was agitated, and he told me that I had to have emergency surgery because he had to take out his gallbladder.
And, I mean, just told me this, like, really...
fanciful tale not fanciful in a good way but this really awful tale about what was going on with him and of course none of it was real that was just all part of his psychosis so we couldn't effectively communicate with him and he did not get good representation at the time never never through the whole legal processes that he went through never did he get adequate legal representation everybody just kept kind of swallowing through the system
So between the time that he was arrested, went to jail because he was in front of your house, from that point, did he ever get out and did things get kind of back to, well, I'm not going to say normal because it never does get normal, but did he ever get back to a better place?
Yes, he did. When he was released after pleading no contest, well, what they sentenced him that day is just credit for time served and put him on probation for, I think, four years. You know, just told him, good luck, stay on your medication, send him on his way. To his credit, he really wanted to stay on his medication.
When I picked him up from the jail, the first thing he wanted to do was go get a three-day prescription that they had gave him for his medication to get that filled. So I took him to the local pharmacy and You know, we gave her a prescription for three days worth of pills and it was going to be over $300. And fortunately, the pharmacist said, hey, do you have GoodRx or whatever?
And she helped us find a pharmacy where we could get it at cheaper. And then Monday rolled around and, you know, the first place he went was to the local behavioral health center to get an appointment so that he could get a regular prescription. And Yeah, he did really good.
When he first got out, within a few days, he got a job and he managed to get his mortgage paid up and, you know, was really working through, you know, getting things caught up when you've been gone for, you know, almost a year of your life.
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Chapter 6: What challenges did Cindy face while advocating for her son?
Yes. It's hard to pronounce. It's hard to remember. But it's very typical, very, very common with people with schizophrenia to feel like, convince themselves they're not ill.
What was going through your mind at the time? You saw what was going on at first and things were getting better. Now you're seeing a relapse. So how did you handle that?
Well, we were trying to get help again. Of course, I had not stopped trying to get help or trying to educate myself. As soon as we had that diagnosis that he had schizophrenia, of course, I started going online and trying to learn everything that I could about the illness and how to help him and how to talk to him and all that kind of stuff. I even went to the behavioral center.
We only have really one here in town. It's the one that had given him his medication. Just to see if my husband and I could meet with somebody there who could explain to us, you know, how we could help him, what we could do to keep him on medication. And they just wouldn't talk to us. You know, the HIPAA rules or they just, it was a big wall.
I mean, they just would not talk to us because he was their patient and he would have to be the one who came in. And of course he was working and he just didn't think that he had an illness by that point. And we were all blowing everything out of proportion.
Meanwhile, do you still have the five children?
Well, we did at that time. Yes. Well, one of them had gone to live with another family, a family friend, but we had the younger four. Yeah. And we ended up raising his two stepdaughters and we still have two at home. And once we were able to, we adopted Cody and Colton. So they've been ours. I'm a grand mom now.
What are their ages?
Oh, Cody's 17. He's a junior and Colton is nine.
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Chapter 7: What is the Tristan Murphy Act and its purpose?
You know, that's usually people that go out, you know, dump loads of trash, construction debris in the woods or whatever. But no, they decided to charge him. And, you know, they knew. They knew that he had a mental illness. They knew, you know, he'd been there. They knew that he was mentally ill. I immediately wrote letters to the judge. I wrote a letter to the district attorney's office.
Like within three days, they had communication on their desks from me stating and pleading for this to be treated as a mental illness, not as a criminal matter. And I just didn't get anywhere with that.
So what was their thinking or did you ever find out why would they pursue this as a criminal act rather than just a reach out for help?
Well, interestingly, two days ago, finally talked to the head prosecutor at the district attorney's office who I directed the letter to. And she said she never saw the letter, that she never got it. I don't know if it was one of those situations where I wrote to her. And of course, you know, she's got other people who scan her mail or whatever and hand it off to different people.
I don't know what happened to the letter, but she said that she didn't get it.
Okay, just so that we can clarify this for everyone, how long did this take? What was the timeframe from when this all started before you actually saw the DA to find out?
Oh, this started, well, four years ago.
Okay.
I haven't confronted her until now. I met her in Tallahassee because I was up there for a hearing and met her for the first time, did not expect to meet her that day. Frankly, when she walked up to me... and introduced herself with another person. There was another person who introduced himself and said, oh, and by the way, this isn't her name.
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Chapter 8: How did Tristan's mental health impact his family?
And, you know, by the end of our conversation, it was like, well, how can we work on this legislation together? What can we do now to make sure this doesn't happen to anybody else? And I expected in the coming months I will be working with her.
Well, that's a good thing. As we know, this was a very bad situation and it turned out, unfortunately, horribly. But if some good can come out of this, the shining light that you're putting forward is that you're changing legislation that will help others in the future.
Right. Well, you know, the rest of Tristan's story there, I don't want to skip over that, but he went through the whole process again, like he had the first time being determined that he was incompetent to stand trial. This time he was literally in solitary, although they don't like for me to call it solitary confinement, but he was in rural, what do they call it?
He was in the infirmary locked in a cell for his protection and everybody's protection because of his mental health issues without a tablet, without a phone, without newspapers or TV or anything, but the voices in his head for hundreds of days before they determined that he was, again, incompetent to stand trial and sent to the forensic facility.
After he was adjudicated and competent to stand trial, it took another 117 days before they sent him for restoration, which is just crazy because in Florida, it's supposed to happen within three days. But anyway, at the end of that whole process, he came back and pled no contest and was sentenced to three years in prison.
And he was transferred from the county jail to a prison here in Florida, and he lived only 63 days there. The 63rd day, he was sent out on a work detail and handed a chainsaw and used the chainsaw to take his own life.
Okay. I guess the big question, at least the one that resonates with me, is why would they give someone a chainsaw?
That's the question that everybody asks. You know, it didn't make sense to me. You know, we know some of the details. I can't really talk about some parts of this because we did end up suing the Department of Corrections here in Florida and settled the case.
But, you know, I think it came down in part to miscommunication within the facility because the person who handed him the chainsaw didn't know that he was mentally ill. He had just met Tristan and Tristan had been... Put on the work detail that day. He was put in a facility where it's like the end of your sentence.
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