Welsh, a teacher at Ravenscroft, was killed by an intruder at her home on Clay Street near Wade Avenue and St. Mary's on Saturday morning. The suspect in her murder, 36-year-old Ryan Camacho, has a lengthy criminal history.
The letter, shared publicly by Paré on X, refers to Camacho's background, stating he "never should have been on the street."
Camacho faced a misdemeanor breaking and entering charge last month, which was dropped after a mental competency exam found he was unable to stand trial. In response, the district attorney requested that Camacho be involuntarily committed, but a judge denied the request.
The letter asks the Committee to consider:
How could a person who was found to not be competent to proceed to trial for a breaking and entering charge, and who had a lengthy criminal history including over 20 arrests, be released and not involuntarily committed, even at the request of the District Attorney?
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"There is a gap in the law right now between the standard for competence to stand trial and the standard for involuntary commitment, and there are people that fall into this gap," said Schietzelt during an interview with ABC 11 on Wednesday.
The House Select Committee on Involuntary Commitment and Public Safety is made up of 21 members, including Rep. Marcia Morey, a retired Chief District Court Judge.
"Our statutes require if someone is going to be detained for an involuntary commitment, there has to be an imminent threat of harm, of suicide or harm to someone else. It's a pretty strict standard. We have a backlog of people who have been petitioned to be committed, but they're waiting for a psychiatric bed," said Morey, a Democrat who represents Durham County.
Morey explained that the Committee is working on reviewing the role of further funding, current laws, and what measures have worked elsewhere.
"Disability Rights has come up with a fact sheet, how other states have minimum holds. If there is an (involuntary commitment), North Carolina just has no longer than seven days, so maybe we need a 48-to-72-hour hold," said Morey.
Schietzelt says the issue presented by this case is separate from what Iryna's Law addressed last year, though similarly believes action needs to be taken by the General Assembly in response.
"We do have to give the courts the tools and the law enforcement the tools to deal with these problems. That is a legislative problem. We've got to enable it by statute. We've got to provide the funding to make sure that they can carry out these duties," said Schietzelt.
A key part of the Committee's work will focus on the current availability of resources and funding.
"We need to make sure that we're getting more health care providers in this space, so they're not having to have the long wait log. We're having to look at how many beds are across the state right now. In North Carolina, 93 out of 100 counties have a mental health provider deficiency. That's the vast majority," said Rep. Terry Brown, a Democrat who represents Mecklenburg County and serves on the Committee.
Morey said resources don't appear to be adequate.
"I think we're really finding we lack appropriate staffing, people with good degrees to do evaluations for total voluntary commitments. We lack staffing to house people who need to be detained because of their commitment. I think we're learning a lot and funding needs to be brought in and we need to be smart on this topic," Morey said.
The Committee is set to meet again Jan. 14.
"I think everybody wants to address this problem. This isn't a red or a blue problem. This is a very human problem. People don't feel safe in their homes. And so I'm confident that my colleagues on that committee and then when it moves to the broader chamber, will be able to find bipartisan consensus," Schietzelt said.
Brown added, "We have to make sure that we're also giving more space for public defenders. We have to give more space for clerks of court, more spaces for judges and training in the magistrates and all those things. So there's a lot of resources that we could be giving forth to folks that we're just not doing right now, because all of these things kind of operate kind of in a ecosystem."
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