OREGON CITY, Or. - In a somber turn of events, Chad Emerson Brix, a 53-year-old resident of Lake Oswego with a long history of mental illness, has pleaded guilty to the murder of his mother. The plea was entered in Clackamas County Circuit Court on Tuesday.
Chad Emerson Brix pled guilty except for insanity to Murder in the Second Degree.
He was sent to the Oregon State Hospital and will be under the jurisdiction of the state’s Psychiatric Security Review Board.
The Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement that Brix killed his mother, 78-year-old Virginia Brix, while she was sleeping in his home on February 2, 2024.
Police respond to a home in Lake Oswego on Friday morning, Feb. 2, 2024. They found 78-year-old Virginia Brix dead and arrested her son, Chad, in her death. (KATU, file)
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Details of the Crime
Prosecutors said Brix stabbed his 78-year-old mother, Virginia, in the chest with a kitchen knife while she slept, after he woke up believing she had drugged him.
Police responded to his Lake Oswego home and discovered the woman’s bloody body covered with blankets.
She had been stabbed in the chest with a kitchen knife.
On February 2, 2024, Virginia Brix was staying with her son in Lake Oswego when Chad Brix woke up with the false belief that she had drugged him, leading him to stab her as she slept, officials say he told police later.
Brix texted his father that day stating he had killed Virginia Brix.
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Brix's Mental Health History
Chad Brix was diagnosed with schizophrenia more than 15 years ago.
Court records show that Brix’s mental health had declined considerably in the years after his diagnosis, as the father of two and former construction-business owner experienced paranoid delusions, impulsivity and auditory hallucinations.
Chad Brix’s delusions included a belief that his two young daughters were in “constant danger” and that people were conspiring to bring down his business.
He suffered from paranoid delusions, impulsivity and auditory hallucinations and had been hospitalized several times.
In December 2021 he called Lake Oswego police after becoming convinced that his daughters were being murdered in a garage in his neighborhood, court records show.
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According to court filings, he’d stopped taking his medications in early 2021 and since then had “decompensated dramatically” over the following year.
In February 2022, he was hospitalized at Unity Center for Behavioral Health in Portland after police found him wandering on private property.
“The longer he goes without comprehensive treatment the deeper the psychosis and more difficult later treatment will become,” reads the petition.
By early 2023, Brix was back living at the home on the same block where he was arrested.
Brix’s mother, who lives in Washington, wrote in a report to the court that she was checking on Brix weekly.
“Chad is now stable and his mental health is good to return to work,” she wrote last April, adding that he’d been taking his medicine regularly and was keeping his delusions under control.
Virginia Brix's Support and Care
Virginia Brix had driven from her Seattle-area home the day before to visit Chad Brix.
She was appointed as her son’s legal guardian in 2022.
In 2022, Virginia Brix and her son’s brother-in-law, Kevin Burke, sought to be appointed temporary guardians of Chad Brix, citing his severe mental health issues, according to court records.
Multnomah County Circuit Judge Patrick W. Henry approved the request, and tasked Virginia Brix and Kevin Burke with communicating with Chad Brix’s doctors and consenting to treatment on his behalf, records show.
A little over a year later, in 2023, Virginia Brix wrote in a mandatory report to the court that she checked in with her son by phone several times a week and that he was stable and looking for a part-time job.
He had been taking his prescribed medications regularly for a year and was “doing well enough,” she wrote.
Despite living in the Seattle area, Virginia Brix visited her son regularly in Lake Oswego, and, even though she had limited means, spent roughly $460,000 to support him, district attorney’s officials said.
She called him daily and visited him frequently to check on his well-being, according to family members who spoke in court on Tuesday.
Virginia Brix was devoted to her son, Chad’s brother, Todd, said.
Todd said she spent around $460,000 to financially support Chad, including paying his rent.
Todd Brix, Chad Brix’s brother, said Virgina Brix, a woman of limited means, was devoted to Chad Brix, paying his rent, financially supporting him and spending around $460,000 on him over the years.
Todd Brix said that when his mother visited Chad she would leave if she sensed she was in danger.
He and his mother had a code word she would use with him if she felt threatened by Chad.
Schizophrenia: Symptoms, Cause, Pathophysiology, Diagnosis and Treatments, Animation.
Family's Perspective
Brix’s daughters and ex-wife told Circuit Judge Ann Lininger that they lived lives filled with anxiety and fear due to his irrational, unpredictable behavior and his potential for violence.
The DA’s office said in a news release on Tuesday that Chad’s daughters and former wife told the judge they lived in anxiety and fear because of Chad’s unpredictable behavior.
“He was at war with his own mind,” one of his daughters said.
A random comment could send him into paranoid delusions.
They also recalled Brix as a good father and husband prior to his mental breakdown.
Before having a mental breakdown, Chad’s family said he was a good father and husband, and he owned a construction company.
He was a civil engineer and once owned a successful construction company, but his mental illness led to divorce, bankruptcy and alienation from his family.
“Chad’s transformation due to mental illness is more tragic than most,” the petition states.
“He was an extremely kind individual; the sort that held families together. He was absolutely dependable, a fine person and great father. At work he managed large construction sites working with dizzying complexities. Beginning about 10 or 11 years ago he steadily lost everything he had in life.”
According to the petition record, Brix was plagued by two recurring delusions: first, that powerful people in the community “put him in frightening and untenable situations and then place bets on whether or not he will be able to extricate himself” and, second, that people were harming his two daughters.
In late 2021, his delusions got steadily worse, court filings say: “In late December he was going through the neighborhood, hearing screams and looking for the garage where his girls were being murdered,” the petition states.
A subsequent filing says that he armed himself with an ax and went knocking on neighbors’ doors, searching for his two daughters who he believed to be in danger.
FILE -- Police respond to a home in Lake Oswego on Friday morning, Feb. 2, 2024. They found 78-year-old Virginia Brix dead and arrested her son, Chad, in her death. (KATU, file)
Chad Brix's Statement
Chad Brix briefly and tearfully addressed his family.
In court on Tuesday, Chad Brix briefly addressed his family as he pleaded guilty to the charges against him.
“I sincerely apologize. I didn’t mean to do it. I’m so sorry,” Chad told his family in court.
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