A Mother’s Agony
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
Email to a friend
Printer friendly
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.
What is the mens reas and actus reas?
