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Authorities say Rosa was killed at random by a man she didn\u2019t know, just three blocks from the small, lime-green house she shared for three decades with her husband, Manuel.<\/p>\n
That May afternoon, Manuel arrived home to find the lunch Rosa had laid out for him. He ate alone, waiting for his wife to return, wondering where she might be.<\/p>\n
Her suspected killer, Amad Rashad Redding, would soon be taken into custody at a nearby Circle K convenience store without a hint of the ferocious violence he was accused of unleashing. The 27-year-old Louisiana native had only recently surfaced, homeless, in Long Beach.<\/p>\n
The killing has, of course, left Rosa\u2019s family and many friends devastated. But it also has triggered a wave of soul-searching in Louisiana, where Amad had been descending in a spiral of mental illness.<\/p>\n
In a months-long examination of the case, the Post learned that Amad was jailed at least four times in Louisiana and committed involuntarily to several mental health facilities in the 16 months before Rosa\u2019s killing.<\/p>\n
Amad\u2019s family, his employer, even strangers say they pushed to get him help before he was beyond their reach. He seemed to keep slipping through their fingers as he was passed back and forth between jails and mental health facilities. Some now wonder whether more could have been done to help the talented young artist from a caring family before he ended up accused of murder.<\/p>\n
In hindsight, no one seemed to grasp the totality of the deepening struggles that led him to the streets of Long Beach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings just got out of control,\u201d says one of his sisters.<\/p>\n
A bright future takes a dark turn<\/b><\/h2>\n
Opelousas is the kind of city where, as one resident puts it, you still get invited to a family\u2019s barbecue even though you broke up with one of their relatives years ago. Although Opelousas has a population of only about 20,000, it\u2019s the biggest town for miles along a stretch of rural southern-central Louisiana.<\/p>\n
Amad, one of 12 siblings, grew up in a home on Opelousas\u2019 Main Street, directly across from a pawn shop and a short walk from the local police station. His dad, a military veteran and attorney, died around the time Amad was born. His mom continued to provide a comfortable life for them. She ran a restaurant and sold lunches out of the house.<\/p>\n
Amad was the baby boy. He and his younger sister were the last two siblings living at home. \u201cHe was very protected. He was very cuddled,\u201d sister Annie affectionately recalls. \u201cAmad, to be honest, was a little on the spoiled side.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was taught to be loving and respectful, still going to church with his mother as a young man. He also loved making his family laugh. His little nephews and nieces couldn\u2019t wait to see Uncle Amad. He spent a summer making goofy YouTube videos with a best friend.<\/p>\n
At Opelousas High School, the 6-foot-tall, 178-pound Amad distinguished himself on the Tigers\u2019 track and football squads. After graduation, he set his sights 60 miles east to Baton Rouge, home of Southern University, where he earned a walk-on spot on the track and field team.<\/p>\n
Until he got an apartment in Baton Rouge, he would commute back and forth from his mom\u2019s house an hour away in Opelousas.<\/p>\n Annie says she began encouraging her brother to envision a bigger future, one with new places, new experiences, new friends. \u201cIf you don\u2019t separate yourself from the \u2018hood, the place that you grew up and everybody knows you, if you don\u2019t break away from that, it can consume you,\u201d she says she told him.<\/p>\n Annie, a commissioned officer in the National Guard, also planted the idea with Amad that he might think about joining up, too, which he eventually did.<\/p>\n Amad\u2019s potential also caught the eye of a Southern University art professor.<\/p>\n Addie Dawson-Euba says she saw something uniquely intense in his abstract paintings for her entry-level class. His use of bold, fiery colors and shapes looked like \u201csome inner voices that were speaking to him,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n She encouraged him to enter a student art show and, soon, he landed an opportunity to exhibit his work at a gallery in New Orleans. The local paper took note in a story headlined: \u201cStudent ditches cleats, picks up paint brush.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like it\u2019s a part of me,\u201d Amad said of his art. \u201cI want people to know who I am, just want [to] let them know that I\u2019m a real cool genuine person.\u201d<\/p>\n He told the newspaper that even though his mom wasn\u2019t crazy about him turning her house into his messy art studio, he\u2019d overhear her on the phone bragging to her friends about his paintings.<\/p>\n Despite Amad\u2019s newfound sense of purpose, Dawson-Euba says she\u2019d occasionally notice him drifting off in class. Are you listening? she\u2019d ask.<\/p>\n \u201cHe’d look and he’d say, \u2018Yes ma’am.\u2019 I don’t know where he went,\u201d the professor recalls, \u201cbut you could see in his mind he was totally somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Soon, however, his behavior took a more tangibly ominous turn.<\/p>\n Amad was still away at college when another sister says she saw a photo late one night that was posted on social media. The image was deeply confusing and concerning, says the sister, who asked to be called Jill. In it, Amad seemed to be in the back of an ambulance, where medics were using some kind of apparatus to keep him warm. It was dark outside and there was water in the background.<\/p>\n Worried, the family tried unsuccessfully to reach Amad. It wasn\u2019t until hours later that a hospital nurse would call with an explanation. She said Amad had been spotted atop a tall levee not far from campus. He was precariously close to the edge when police managed to talk him down.<\/p>\n \u201cIf he would’ve fallen in there, they never would’ve found his body,\u201d says Jill, who suspects one of the paramedics uploaded the photo.<\/p>\n At the scene, officers told Amad that he was technically trespassing. They said he was either going to jail or to a hospital, according to sister Annie. Although Annie says she is unsure exactly how long Amad was in the hospital, she remembers that he was released with medication for bipolar disorder.<\/p>\n Often reserved, Amad wouldn\u2019t talk with his family about what happened in the hospital. They\u2019d have to sit him down somewhere quiet to coax anything out of him, according to Annie.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s been times that Amad would say there\u2019s things going on in his head that he doesn\u2019t understand,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The union of Rosa and Manuel Hernandez seemed like sweet destiny.<\/p>\n The two grew up in a Mexican village called Campanillas, tucked into the mountains of Sinaloa off an unpaved road. Its population consisted of about 15 families. As kids, Rosa and Manuel knew each other from the town\u2019s tiny school house, but back then they weren\u2019t particularly close.<\/p>\n Life was tough in Campanillas. Families worked farms or sold basic goods out of their homes to survive. In 1980, Manuel and a group of friends immigrated to Long Beach looking for new opportunities.<\/p>\n Rosa stayed behind, refusing to be defeated by difficulties. At neighborhood parties, she danced and sang and pulled others along with her. She collected food and clothes for those in need. She also was raising her young niece, who became more like Rosa\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n \u201cShe gave all she had,\u201d says niece Linda Lorena Lopez Manjarrez.<\/p>\n But when Rosa was about 30, she decided to leave for Long Beach, too, hoping to earn money to send back to family members. Still, she kept close to her roots. Rosa and Linda talked on the phone every day, and Rosa often visited her parents in Campanillas, once her paperwork was in order.<\/p>\n Now, sharing the same town again for the first time in a decade, Manuel and Rosa gave in to the nudgings of acquaintances and agreed to meet and go dancing. Within a few years, they were wed.<\/p>\n \u201cOver there is where their love grew,\u201d Linda says of Long Beach.<\/p>\n In their lives together, Rosa hopped from job to job, not wasting time anywhere she didn\u2019t seem to fit, but Manuel\u2019s employment was steady. He performed maintenance work for a man who owned apartments in the area.<\/p>\n Rosa and Manuel were so close to the man that, when he died, he left the couple a two-bedroom house across the street from Ramona Park in North Long Beach. Although the home was small, it was perfect for Rosa and Manuel, who did not have children. A picture of Manuel\u2019s departed boss was given a prominent place on a table under the living room window.<\/p>\n With no mortgage or rent, the couple could now make do on Manuel\u2019s wages alone. So Rosa, in her 50s, spent her time taking care of her husband and their home, while staying as social as ever.<\/p>\n Because she didn\u2019t drive, Rosa got rides or walked almost everywhere, which was easy in a neighborhood where she could visit her many friends simply by strolling down the block.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was a very happy woman,\u201d says Linda, \u201cvery loved.\u201d<\/p>\n On the other side of the country, life was more turbulent for Amad\u2019s family, which was grappling with ways to guide him after the bewildering levee incident.<\/p>\n Amad\u2019s sister Annie reached out to someone she knew in the mental health field and asked him to see Amad while the family worked out the details of longer-term treatment.<\/p>\n Amad knew something was wrong inside, she says. \u201cHe didn\u2019t understand what was happening to him.\u201d Still, he failed to show up for the appointment, she says.<\/p>\n One time, when Amad did attend a different therapy session, he swore he\u2019d never go back. Those people were crazy, he told Annie and his mother.<\/p>\n As the months wore on, Amad\u2019s descent quickened, prompting more encounters with law enforcement and stays in mental health facilities.<\/p>\n One jarring early sign of trouble came on the night of Jan. 26, 2018, when Amad lashed out at his little sister, with whom he\u2019d always been close\u2014her protector, in Annie\u2019s words.<\/p>\n The two had been arguing over something small, a can of soda, when he allegedly hit her in the face with an open hand. Amad then went to the laundry room, returning with a 9mm handgun that he purportedly pointed at her.<\/p>\n Although Amad denied pointing a gun, police took him into custody after the sister showed officers the weapon. Amad was not charged in the incident.<\/p>\n Less than two months later, there was more trouble.<\/p>\n It was around 11:15 p.m. and Amad\u2019s mother heard gunshots outside her home\u2014nonstop and getting closer. Suddenly, she realized that it was her son who was firing and she called 911.<\/p>\n According to a police account of the incident, Amad had been shooting wildly, with rounds hitting the closed pawn shop across the street. One bullet went through the front window, another into a drain pipe and two through some paneling. Nobody was hurt.<\/p>\n Officers found Amad under his house with a Smith and Wesson pistol and ammunition. Before officers took him into custody, Amad\u2019s mother told them he needed mental help. He was later released and charges inexplicably would not be filed for more than a year.<\/p>\n According to the family, Amad began bouncing in and out of inpatient facilities as his erratic and unpredictable behavior escalated, eventually drawing the scrutiny of his superiors in the Louisiana National Guard.<\/p>\n About a month after the pawn shop episode, Amad walked up to Shawn Tucker, the sales manager at a used car lot in Lafayette, and said he wanted to test drive a black Dodge Charger. Tucker told him to sit tight while he grabbed his phone from the office.<\/p>\n Instead, Amad took off without him\u2014and didn\u2019t come back. At the lot, he\u2019d left his old Jeep with its keys and some National Guard paperwork inside. Tucker managed to get Amad\u2019s sergeant on the phone, and for two days the men unsuccessfully tried to talk Amad into returning the car.<\/p>\n Four or five times, Amad agreed to meet Tucker at a different gas station or parking lot. Each time, Amad was a no-show. Finally, Tucker spotted him driving away from the last designated meeting spot and followed behind, calling Amad until he answered.<\/p>\n Tucker convinced Amad to return to the lot, where police surrounded him. Tucker told the officers he did not want to press charges. He just wanted Amad to undergo some kind of mental evaluation by the paramedics.<\/p>\n \u201cDude\u2019s just got problems,\u201d Tucker says he told the police. \u201cHe needs to get some help.\u201d<\/p>\n But Amad, quiet and standoffish, said he didn\u2019t want treatment from the paramedic crew and he was allowed to get into his Jeep and go, according to Tucker.<\/p>\n National Guard officials, meanwhile, had alerted Amad\u2019s superiors about the strange incident. It was part of a pattern of concerning behavior by Amad, says National Guard Col. Ed Bush.<\/p>\n Often called \u201cweekend warriors,\u201d most members of the Guard serve part-time but can be called into action by state governors who control their operations or by the federal government in national emergencies. Monthly training drills are an important facet of keeping guard members service-ready\u2014and Amad had been missing some of them while in police custody, according to Bush. He\u2019d also been involved in some pushing and shoving incidents during training.<\/p>\n A tipping point came when Amad and his fellow guardsmen were training at Camp Shelby in Mississippi, according to a person familiar with his service records. Amad reportedly had a paranoia-induced argument with one of the soldiers.<\/p>\n Amad\u2019s Guard superiors decided it was time to act. They had him transported to a nearby hospital, where staff concluded that Amad\u2019s condition was so severe they petitioned a judge to have him involuntarily committed to a state mental institution.<\/p>\n When Amad arrived there, he was paranoid, lethargic and speaking only in vague whispers, according to a source who reviewed Amad\u2019s medical records. But within a few days, doctors wrote that the symptoms had abated. They discharged him with a diagnosis of unspecified personality and adjustment disorders. Amad was given medication to take with him but it is unclear whether he was offered continuing mental health treatment.<\/p>\n Despite seeing disturbing pieces of Amad\u2019s deterioration, his sisters say they did not grasp the full scope of what was happening because they still saw him acting in his old fun-loving ways.<\/p>\n In June last year, for example, just weeks before National Guard officials had him involuntarily sent to the mental institution, Amad attended his brother\u2019s wedding. He brought a date. He danced. He took photos with his family.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was nothing to warrant anyone to think that he wasn\u2019t healthy,\u201d Annie says.<\/p>\n But by the beginning of 2019, it would become increasingly clear that Amad\u2019s decline was no longer gradual. He seemed to be freefalling.<\/p>\n Amad\u2019s family home burned on the night of Jan. 21.<\/p>\n The damage was catastrophic, leaving mostly a charred shell. Fortunately, no one was inside. But firefighters told Amad\u2019s sister Jill that they had encountered her brother acting strangely outside.<\/p>\n \u201cThey said that he was trying to get back in the house,\u201d Jill recalls. \u201cHe said that he was trying to get his clothes or something else out of the house and they had to, like, try to hold him down for him to not get in the house.\u201d<\/p>\n Amad reportedly also incriminated himself. He told firefighters he\u2019d been playing with gasoline in the dining room when he poured it over his hands and caused the fire, according to an arson investigator\u2019s report.<\/p>\n Amad was transported to a Lafayette hospital and treated for third-degree burns on his hands. He was later transferred to a small mental facility in New Orleans, where his family hoped someone could figure out what was happening to him.<\/p>\n At the facility, Jill says, Amad gave her a different version of the fire\u2019s origin. He said he\u2019d been eating at the dining room table when he was blown backward by some kind of unexplained explosion at the front of the house.<\/p>\n But Jill was also talking with Amad\u2019s doctors. For the first time, they told her that, among other mental health issues, they thought her brother had schizophrenia, a disease that typically takes hold in the late teens to early 30s. She says they assured her that he\u2019d \u201cbe fine once he gets the medication in his system.\u201d<\/p>\n Jill wishes they\u2019d acted more alarmed. \u201cThey didn\u2019t tell us how severe it was,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, any optimism that Amad was now in good hands, safely on the mend, was about to vanish. When Jill called the facility for an update, a nurse informed her he was gone.<\/p>\n Amad had been arrested by the State Fire Marshal\u2019s Office, which says it acted only after the facility said he was about to be discharged. Amad\u2019s family contends that he was removed from treatment prematurely, sparking a downward spiral with irreversible consequences.<\/p>\n \u201cHe should not have been taken from that facility,\u201d says sister Annie.<\/p>\n The local newspaper, which only a couple of years earlier had heralded Amad\u2019s transition from athlete to artist, was now writing about him as an alleged arsonist.<\/p>\n The warrant authorizing Amad\u2019s arrest was signed by a judge whom the family knew. Jill says her mom confronted the judge, telling him that he had wrecked any chance of Amad recovering. The judge declined to comment when contacted by the Long Beach Post.<\/p>\n Court records show that he set Amad\u2019s bail at $5,000, which was covered by a bondsman. Soon after his release, Amad tried to allay his family\u2019s concerns, telling them not to worry, that he\u2019d gotten a hotel room so he could shower and get some sleep.<\/p>\n That evening, a police officer pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall at the edge of Opelousas, an area with a handful of motels. In the lot, the officer encountered a man dressed all in black.<\/p>\n From the Opelousas police station, Major Mark Guidry was monitoring the situation. When he heard Amad\u2019s name during the interaction, he contacted the officer and warned him that this was the same man, the accused arsonist, who\u2019d been cut loose earlier that day.<\/p>\n Amad told the officer that he was \u201cfeeling violent tendencies towards himself and others,\u201d according to a police report on the encounter.<\/p>\n Having been free for only a matter of hours, Amad was again taken to a psychiatric facility, this one 100 miles southeast in Houma, Louisiana. He was given medication for schizophrenia and depression while staff there started trying to verify his address to determine the best place to send him next, according to law enforcement records.<\/p>\n But by the eighth day, Amad was apparently done waiting. The local sheriff\u2019s department says he broke a latch on a door in his room that led to the ceiling and tried to kick his way to freedom through the tiles. When deputies arrived, they found Amad holding on to the rafters and took him into custody.<\/p>\n Again, Amad went from a mental health facility to incarceration. He spent almost six weeks in the Terrebonne Parish lockup without ever being transferred back to a treatment center, according to sheriff\u2019s department records.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s no hospital to send him to,\u201d one law enforcement official quipped. \u201cWelcome to Louisiana.”<\/p>\n That assessment is echoed by other law enforcement employees and mental healthcare advocates in the state.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/old.lbpost.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Scooter_05.jpg\")
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A storybook marriage<\/b><\/h2>\n
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\u201cHe needs to get some help\u201d<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Cycling through jails, institutions<\/b><\/h2>\n
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