MURDERER: Christian Gomez

When the mental health system fails and it leads to the brutal murder of a loving mother.

Christian Gomez lived in Oldsmar, Florida with his mother, older brother and younger sister. He was described as a happy and affectionate child but when he hit eighteen Gomez began "acting out". He couldn't hold down a job and didn't want to learn to drive, both of these could have been seen as a teen that didn't want to grow up but his behaviour slowly got worse. Gomez stopped showering claiming that his mom and sister were watching him through the TV. He began to isolate himself from his family and often was seen in the backyard talking to God or the stars.
There were reports that he skinned and buried the family cat.

Gomez's therapist recommended that he start going to public places, like a cafe, to try and socialize but Gomez was growing largely indifferent towards conversation with his own family.
He would be bombarded by voices coming from under his bed. Gomez's solution was to put the mattress up against a wall and spend the night in the dark family room.

His behaviour could be so erratic that his mom reportedly slept with a knife under his pillow.

Maria Suarez-Cassagne was a single mother of three with one income for a four-person household. She did what she could to raise her children as best as she could, for Gomez she had a stack of paperwork that documented all the attempts to get him help for his mental health.
That stack of papers included all the different mental health professionals and state agencies that Maria could physically contact for help. It also included different diagnoses for Gomez, some said he was schizophrenic another bipolar and others mentioned depression and psychotic behaviour.
While she waited for some sort of help, Maria did everything she could to help her son.

When Gomez began acting inappropriately towards his younger sister, who was 7 years his junior, Maria refused to leave Gomez alone. Another reason behind that was Gomez had previously been picked up by police because he was wandering around a neighbourhood asking if he could live with strangers.

This refusal to leave Gomez alone led Maria to take him into her job at Countryside Hospital. She would soon lose her job because of this.
Gomez refused to take his medication so Maria would crush the pills and sprinkle them into his food. When her attempts were discovered, Gomez accused his mother of poisoning him.

On December 30th 2014, Maria's parents took Gomez to his regularly scheduled visit with his therapist. In that meeting, it was decided that Gomez would need to find a new psychiatrist.

The next day, Gomez claimed that he had a fight with Maria over moving some boxes in the garage and that was the reason for what would follow. Gomez grabbed an axe and took it to his mom's bedroom. He cut her head off, killing her right on the spot. He dragged Maria's body outside, attempting to put her inside the bins but when she didn't fit, Gomez left her beside them. He put her severed head inside the bin before fleeing the area.

Gomez's older brother called the police at around 7:30 pm, he told dispatch that his brother had killed his mom and cut her head off. Another call to 9-1-1 came through at 7:57 pm, reporting a suspicious person on a bicycle in the area. Gomez was arrested after the second call, confessing to murdering his mother at the sheriff's office.

Gomez spent the next three years at a state mental health facility before he was declared competent to stand trial on July 9th 2017. He could've faced a life sentence but instead took a plea deal that shortened his sentence to 25 years followed by 10 years probation and treatment.

His family felt that the state mental health services were failing him all over again, abandoning him once they were legally allowed to. They would rather he stayed in the hospital, fearing that the little progress he had made there would be gone the second he entered the prison system. The progress that Gomez had made in the three years of treatment was that he could sit, unshackled, at a table with corrections officers and discuss his plea deal, before he would have attempted to attack them.

Christian Gomez's uncle, Maria's sister, said. "So, maybe he gets out in twenty years. What happens after that? Where is he going to go? His sister is afraid of him, I mean, terrified. Not only did he kill her mom but he tried to make her his woman. They say they'll monitor him for ten years and make sure he takes his medicine. He's not going to take his medicine. Everybody just washed their hands of him."

Maria had sought out a place where Christian would've been safe, cared for professionally and watched over 24 hours. Her wish was granted for just a brief while but it came with the cost of her life.