‘No one would listen’: Charlotte rape suspect’s family tried to get him to psychiatric facility

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - Two weeks before Santerius Allen was arrested on charges he broke into a Charlotte woman’s house and raped her, his family called the Cleveland County Department of Social Services for help.

Allen had just spent 15 months in the Avery County jail. Just before that incarceration, he was turned away from Atrium Health Cleveland after his mother obtained involuntary commitment papers for him from the Cleveland County magistrate, records show.

A WBTV investigation reveals how his family’s numerous other calls begging jails not to release him and mental health organizations to take him proved futile.

On Jan. 24, an innocent woman in south Charlotte paid the price.

‘I was afraid this was coming’

Since 2016, jail and prison records show Allen has been incarcerated in one form or another for all but roughly three months.

During those three months, his mother and other family members did everything they could think of to get him away from society; something had snapped in his head, they said. They didn’t know what was going on, but they knew they had to get him away from the public.

“I was afraid that this was coming,” his mother said in an interview with WBTV.

She and another family member asked for their faces and names to be hidden, due to the nature of Allen’s charges.

“I tried so hard to get the help before it happened. No one would listen,” the family member said. “I was so hurt for the lady because she don’t deserve this. She did not deserve this to happen to her.”

In 2016, Allen was sentenced to prison for crimes including possession of stolen goods. While incarcerated, his sentence was extended for convictions of assaulting a prison employee and other criminal offenses, according to state criminal records. A brief parole was quickly rescinded.

While behind bars, his mother said he was put on anti-depressants. When it came time for his release in 2022, she said she begged his case manager to assist in setting up a post-release treatment plan to ensure prescription continuity and a safe place to get him help—to no avail.

“This person who came out of prison, I don’t know who this person is,” she said.

N.C. Department of Adult Correction’s spokesperson John Bull said state laws prohibit him from commenting on a specific prisoner’s medical condition or medical treatment, as well as whether medication was issued or refused.

“We go to great lengths to prepare a viable, detailed release plan for an offender who nears the end of his term of incarceration, including the continuation, if possible, of any prescriptions post-release,” Bull wrote in an email.

Following Allen’s prison release, he was sent immediately to the Burke County jail where jail officials confirmed he remained from July 4 through July 28, 2022.

‘They don’t have beds’

Three days after Allen was released from the Burke County jail, police records show the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office was called in to help find him – he ran off, his family said.

That same day, his mother went to the Cleveland County magistrate’s office and obtained an involuntary commitment order: the first step in the process of getting a person inside a psychiatric facility against their will.

A magistrate can deny that petition if the evidence is insufficient. In this case, police records show the order was granted, and Shelby police picked Allen up on the afternoon of July 31, 2022, from his family member’s home.

They arrived at the Cleveland Crisis & Recovery Center in Shelby, one of 70 facilities statewide approved for treating individuals detained against their will using an involuntary commitment.

Police records show he was turned away nine minutes later.

“They don’t have beds,” the officer wrote in notes on the report obtained by WBTV.

The officer took him next to the Atrium Health Cleveland Hospital’s emergency department, where the officer’s notes close the call out. His mother says she was called shortly afterward to pick Allen up.

“They told me he was fine,” she recalled. “Nothing was wrong. Nothing they could do.”

How North Carolina restricts acute mental health commitments

North Carolina requires a trained medical provider to examine someone on an involuntary commitment order before they can be cleared and released from custody. If that examination happened, timestamps in police records and the mother’s account indicate it happened inside of a very short time window.

She tried again the next day, this time at Atrium Health Behavioral Health in Charlotte, she said. Allen ran away after his evaluation, leaving her unable to try and obtain a second commitment order for him, this time in Mecklenburg County.

Federal health privacy laws prevent Atrium Health from commenting specifically on Allen’s case. When reached for comment, a spokesperson said that state laws require more than just a mental illness history or episode of psychotic behavior to commit someone against their will.

“We evaluate patients to determine if they pose a reasonable threat to themselves or to others – in other words looking for suicidal or homicidal tendencies or other significant indicators that they will commit acts of violence,” Atrium Health spokesperson Brian Hacker said. “If there is no imminent risk of harm, we cannot commit them, unless there is an existing mental illness diagnosis that would call for that.”

He also pointed to the length of time that had elapsed since the mid-2022 commitment order: “[A patient’s] condition and demonstrated behaviors could change significantly after such a length of time,” he said.

Allen, however, ended up in a familiar place just a few weeks later - jail. Officials confirmed he was incarcerated in the Avery County jail from Sept. 4, 2022, until Dec. 11, 2023, just a few weeks before the south Charlotte rape.

NC’s chronic mental health crisis

It’s not uncommon for the designated facilities to be full and a patient instead to be taken to a hospital emergency department, a Shelby Police official noted.

Statewide, WBTV has reported for years how psychiatric bed shortages have led to chronic gaps in acute mental health care. When a bed isn’t available, patients can wait for weeks in an emergency room.

Another 2018 WBTV investigation found one Cleveland County man had spent years in and out of jail, his family desperate to get him help but told he didn’t qualify for an involuntary commitment order.

“I’ll just put it bluntly: local jails are becoming a depository or dumping ground for the mentally ill,” Cleveland County Sheriff Alan Norman told WBTV at the time.

In Allen’s case, his family wasn’t done trying to find a solution.

‘I never heard back from them’

Two weeks before the Charlotte attack, another close family member of Allen said she called Cleveland County Department of Social Services.

Allen had been released from the Avery County jail a few weeks earlier – once again, his mother said, over her pleas to get him a post-incarceration treatment plan – and the family was struggling to cope.

The decision to call DSS came after the family had placed calls to every local mental health organization they could find online. Most often, they couldn’t afford the price quoted to them; Allen didn’t have health insurance.

So now, they turned to the county.

“I was hopeful they would come out and either interview him or tell me or him what next steps to take in his case,” the family member explained.

She said she did not hear back from them until the day after the attack. Cleveland County officials didn’t respond to a request for comment on this story.

On Jan. 23, a private organization specializing in helping people after incarceration sent her an email. They were willing to help the family out with a treatment plan, an email reviewed by WBTV confirmed.

A day later, it was too late.

The family hurts for the survivor, an innocent woman who paid the price. His mother thinks first of her.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “If I could do anything to take it back, I would.”

Copyright 2024 WBTV. All rights reserved.