LAS VEGAS -- Anyone could be in the situation now facing Kathy and Allen Jacobsen. They are trapped next door to a neighbor who is living with his demons.
The sounds that pollute Jacobsen's bedroom come from next door. Recordings made from inside their home reflect three years of bizarre, and often terrifying, ramblings. They are the seemingly dawn to dusk delusions of their mentally ill neighbor, Patrick Galterio.
"We're afraid that he's going to break into our house some day and do us harm. It's a horrible way to live. It is truly horrible," said Kathy Jacobsen.
The Jacobsen's fears may not be unfounded. In 2002, police arrested Galterio for attempted home invasion and aggravated stalking. According to court records, his infatuation with a woman who lived nearby erupted. One night he tried to kick-in her back door. The victim, who is afraid of him still, asked to have her identity concealed.
"He just looked so deranged. I was afraid for my life, of course I was," she said.
Galterio spent time in a state mental facility before accepting a plea deal in the case. Other minor convictions and arrests for mostly petty crimes date back to the 1980's. Las Vegas police records reveal officers have responded to Galterio's home more than 40 times in the last three years.
Yet the department says unless Galterio presents a threat to himself or others, officers cannot legally commit him for treatment.
Dr. Ole Thienhaus is the psychiatry chair at the University of Nevada's School of Medicine. He has not examined Galterio.
"It's really a reflection on the functioning of the community here. We have a sick member here. Ideally, someone will take the initiative and help put this man in a setting where he can get the treatment he needs," he said.
Galterio remains under court supervision following a no contest plea to disturbing the peace last summer. As part of the deal, he's supposed to work with mental health professionals and stay out of trouble for one year. But the court says it won't check his compliance for another six months.
The Jacobsen's insist Galterio's strange behavior is escalating, evidenced in part by four recent contacts with police. And then there are tapes -- the screams of the disturbed, disturbing.
"I want to know, are we going to have another blood bath in this neighborhood like there was a year ago down on San Pedro when Harold Montague went nuts?" said Jacobson. "Are we going to have one of those here?"
Montague, you may remember, claims he was insane when he attacked a neighbor and killed her infant with an axe.
Galterio's mother, Josephine, says her son is not dangerous and records show he has no prior violent convictions. She says he is in treatment, but that it doesn't seem to be working very well.
To address the noise issues, she says she is working to move Patrick to the interior of their house. The neighbors hope someone with his treatment team, or with the courts, will intervene to ensure he gets it.
