Kahler Strives for Better Care for County's Mentally Ill
By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Nov. 3, 2003
In his most agonizing hours, David Kahler refuses to twist the blinds shut and demand his privacy.
He does not grieve openly; he shields his vulnerabilities. He fights the tears that blur his piercing blue eyes. He can handle anything, he likes to say.
He "stuffs things way down," is how a close friend put it. This is how he deals with pain.
There has been a lot of pain. A few months ago, Kahler's only son jumped to his death from the Golden Gate Bridge.
John Henry Kahler IV, who was mentally ill, immediately became the focus of an investigation into the gruesome slaying of an Antioch mother along the Contra Costa Canal Trail.
When police cars and TV trucks crowded his suburban doorstep, his life, Kahler squared his shoulders. He met this one head-on.
In this case, the Concord widower turned a personal family drama into a heated battle to clear his dead son's name. He managed as well to highlight a larger social issue -- the terrible stigma facing the mentally ill.
"He holds his pain. I don't know anyone else who could in his situation," said Julia Bonacich, a member of National Alliance for the Mentally Ill Contra Costa. "I have never met such a warrior in a long time."
This is how Kahler reacted when his wife, Agnes, died of a heart problem two years ago. The couple did not want a funeral. This is how he dealt with a surreal police investigation, which steered into his four-bedroom Concord home and turned his life upside down.
"I believe that God has shaped my father to be an overcomer and to never look backwards," said Elisabeth Espineira, 36. "He has a tremendous inner strength."
This strength has been tested. Concord police had labeled John Kahler, 32, a "person of interest" in the daytime killing of Kathleen Aiello Loreck on May 13, a crime that jolted the region.
The younger Kahler, who had a history of legal and mental problems, committed suicide a day after the slaying. He had been living with his father less than a mile from the crime scene, and his face resembled police sketches of a husky man spotted on the trail that day.
As the story unfolded, Kahler maintained his son's innocence. He ripped police for going public with his son's name before DNA tests were returned. He told detectives that he had been with John at home nearly the entire time that the crime occurred.
He requested a lie-detector test, and passed.
In June, police acknowledged that DNA evidence from the scene and the victim's body did not match a genetic sample taken from the younger Kahler's body. Still, police refused to name or eliminate him as a potential suspect.
In September, DNA evidence found on a cigarette butt at the scene matched that of an Indiana drifter -- a startling break in the 4-month-old case. Last week, prosecutors charged Robert Ward Frazier with rape, murder and sodomy in connection with the trailside beating.
Concord police Lt. Dan Siri declined to talk about Kahler for this story. The department, he said, had nothing to say.
These days, there are no more police interviews, no more newscasters tapping on his door at 6 a.m. Kahler is still trying to sort out why his son killed himself and how deeply the investigation and media coverage had scarred his life.
Still, he pushes ahead as arguably the most active member of NAMI Contra Costa, which has grown to include more than 400 families.
This has become his life passion. He publishes the NAMI newsletter, organizes meetings and events and speaks regularly about the strains of a "dysfunctional" county mental health system.
He was a vocal proponent of a treatment center for the mentally ill in Pleasant Hill. Crestwood opened Oct. 10 after a 15-month fight with worried neighbors.
Kahler, a fit, clean-shaven man who favors polo shirts and loose-fitting khakis, passes out his cell phone number as it if were a business card. He is available, he likes to say, "24-7."
Rev. Chet Watson, president of NAMI California, said he met Kahler after the father joined the Contra Costa chapter in 1995. He likens him to a brother.
"Dave is an unusual guy," Watson said. "On one hand, I love him. On the other, I want to kick him in the shin. He is a typical American entrepreneur; he would not last in a corporation three days. He sees a problem, analyzes it, fixes it or discards it.
"He has very little patience for people who do not want to act on it. Patience is not his greatest virtue. But I will go on the record: I do not know anyone who has done more for (mentally ill) consumers than Dave."
Kahler is intelligent, logical, articulate, passionate, long-winded, feisty, combative and, once he gets going, about as difficult to slow as a speeding BART train.
"Our system is bankrupt," Kahler said over a cup of tea at a downtown Concord restaurant. "Now, if the new governor rescinds the auto tax, that's (more money) swiped from our county. And the system before this was dysfunctional.
"If you are mentally ill without a support network you don't stand a chance."
He credits NAMI for having become his pillar of support, his fix. After his son died, how would he survive without the families of mentally ill people who understood his grief?
Kahler spends a lot of time now focusing on the strained mental health system; he wants to establish a mental health court.
Studies show that about 5 percent of the adult population suffers from a serious and chronic form of mental illness, he said. In other words, 45,000 of Contra Costa County's approximately 900,000 residents are dealing with serious mental health issues.
"But our (health services division) budget is $500 million," Kahler said. "The mental health division works with $87 million. There are 3,000 people in our system at any given time. What happens to the other 42,000 people? They are at home with their parents or hiding under a bridge. But they're here."
Kahler is 70. He grew up in tiny Morris, Minn., where his father, John, ran an 80-room hotel during the Depression.
The Kahler family has a legacy of running hotels in Minnesota dating to 1868.
"Our family life was absolutely idyllic," said Kahler, who described his father as a gentle, apolitical soul who kept his worries to himself.
In the 1940s, the family operated a lakeside resort north of Brainerd, Minn. There, the young Kahler, a thrill-seeker, fell in love with water-skiing. He toured with a professional outfit in 1953, surfing barefoot across the country.
He attended the University of Minnesota, where he learned the skills that would lead to a successful career as a restaurateur and small-business operator.
"He was a wild man," said Kahler's old college roommate, Jeremy Blodgett, who lives in San Rafael and remains a close friend. "He was a person who, in a sense, felt that anything can be done. He was a can-do kind of guy."
Kahler started his business career in California in the early 1960s, when he became a managing partner in a plastics company in San Rafael.
In 1973, he moved to Concord and bought a four-bedroom house on St. Francis Drive, where he lives today with his daughter, Elisabeth, her husband, John, and his 16-year-old grandson, David Espineira.
Life took a sharp twist in the early 1990s. His son, a soft-spoken, gifted transmission mechanic, had started to fall apart.
"We were the typical family, doing its thing, and mental illness comes along -- whammo!" Kahler said. "The sensation is like being in the middle of a hurricane."
John was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, or manic depression, in 1994. This serious brain disorder incites wild mood swings and periods of deep lethargy, and occurs in about 1 percent of the adult population.
On Memorial Day 1994, John, distraught over a breakup with a girlfriend, hopped on a freight train and lost himself for two months, rattling across the country. It was a significant breakdown because he had ditched a court-ordered rehab program. He was a fugitive.
In a nearly 10-year struggle, Dave Kahler navigated the mental health system, "a minefield without a map." He fought for services, tried to shield his son from irrational choices and the perpetual tug of temptation.
He used to pin all of his son's erratic behavior on immaturity, drugs or booze. He did not understand the criminal justice system, the health resources available, mental illness and its tight grip on his son's mind.
John, in the meantime, racked up a history of misdemeanor convictions in his early 20s. He had three DUIs, the last of which prompted a judge to put him in a court-ordered rehab program.
"It was a gift; he could have been sent to prison," Kahler said. "But John did not see it this way."
By September 2002, Kahler's son had assaulted him four times in the previous four years. Kahler filed a restraining order that month, reporting that John had "knocked him to the ground and then continued to pummel me for an extended period of time."
Kahler, though, never quit, writing often to judges, pleading for compassion.
He always held out hope that John would learn to manage his illness, curb his manic outbursts, reach a "plateau."
This is why he called the cops, obtained a restraining order, hid the car or its keys. He wanted his son to hold a job, earn some friends, take a critical step to self-confidence.
"Dave would think nothing of driving from here to Los Angeles to pick up his son at a police station," said his friend, Blodgett. "He was the opposite of an absent parent. He saved him, kept him from bottoming out."
In his final days, John Kahler was living in a $500-a-month Concord apartment, paid for by his father. Dave had secured a restraining order against his son in March, but allowed him to sleep on the sofa one night. John seemed surprised.
Elisabeth said the three weeks that followed were "the greatest," as she and her brother watched a lot of Christian TV and read the Bible.
John never left again until the day he pulled on a nice flannel shirt, climbed into his 1991 Nissan Stanza and steered his way to the Golden Gate Bridge.
The restraining order is still posted inside the front door, an awkward family memory. Kahler is not really sure why he has not removed it. It is just there.
Contra Costa Newspapers
Nov. 3, 2003
In his most agonizing hours, David Kahler refuses to twist the blinds shut and demand his privacy.
He does not grieve openly; he shields his vulnerabilities. He fights the tears that blur his piercing blue eyes. He can handle anything, he likes to say.
He "stuffs things way down," is how a close friend put it. This is how he deals with pain.
There has been a lot of pain. A few months ago, Kahler's only son jumped to his death from the Golden Gate Bridge.
John Henry Kahler IV, who was mentally ill, immediately became the focus of an investigation into the gruesome slaying of an Antioch mother along the Contra Costa Canal Trail.
When police cars and TV trucks crowded his suburban doorstep, his life, Kahler squared his shoulders. He met this one head-on.
In this case, the Concord widower turned a personal family drama into a heated battle to clear his dead son's name. He managed as well to highlight a larger social issue -- the terrible stigma facing the mentally ill.
"He holds his pain. I don't know anyone else who could in his situation," said Julia Bonacich, a member of National Alliance for the Mentally Ill Contra Costa. "I have never met such a warrior in a long time."
This is how Kahler reacted when his wife, Agnes, died of a heart problem two years ago. The couple did not want a funeral. This is how he dealt with a surreal police investigation, which steered into his four-bedroom Concord home and turned his life upside down.
"I believe that God has shaped my father to be an overcomer and to never look backwards," said Elisabeth Espineira, 36. "He has a tremendous inner strength."
This strength has been tested. Concord police had labeled John Kahler, 32, a "person of interest" in the daytime killing of Kathleen Aiello Loreck on May 13, a crime that jolted the region.
The younger Kahler, who had a history of legal and mental problems, committed suicide a day after the slaying. He had been living with his father less than a mile from the crime scene, and his face resembled police sketches of a husky man spotted on the trail that day.
As the story unfolded, Kahler maintained his son's innocence. He ripped police for going public with his son's name before DNA tests were returned. He told detectives that he had been with John at home nearly the entire time that the crime occurred.
He requested a lie-detector test, and passed.
In June, police acknowledged that DNA evidence from the scene and the victim's body did not match a genetic sample taken from the younger Kahler's body. Still, police refused to name or eliminate him as a potential suspect.
In September, DNA evidence found on a cigarette butt at the scene matched that of an Indiana drifter -- a startling break in the 4-month-old case. Last week, prosecutors charged Robert Ward Frazier with rape, murder and sodomy in connection with the trailside beating.
Concord police Lt. Dan Siri declined to talk about Kahler for this story. The department, he said, had nothing to say.
These days, there are no more police interviews, no more newscasters tapping on his door at 6 a.m. Kahler is still trying to sort out why his son killed himself and how deeply the investigation and media coverage had scarred his life.
Still, he pushes ahead as arguably the most active member of NAMI Contra Costa, which has grown to include more than 400 families.
This has become his life passion. He publishes the NAMI newsletter, organizes meetings and events and speaks regularly about the strains of a "dysfunctional" county mental health system.
He was a vocal proponent of a treatment center for the mentally ill in Pleasant Hill. Crestwood opened Oct. 10 after a 15-month fight with worried neighbors.
Kahler, a fit, clean-shaven man who favors polo shirts and loose-fitting khakis, passes out his cell phone number as it if were a business card. He is available, he likes to say, "24-7."
Rev. Chet Watson, president of NAMI California, said he met Kahler after the father joined the Contra Costa chapter in 1995. He likens him to a brother.
"Dave is an unusual guy," Watson said. "On one hand, I love him. On the other, I want to kick him in the shin. He is a typical American entrepreneur; he would not last in a corporation three days. He sees a problem, analyzes it, fixes it or discards it.
"He has very little patience for people who do not want to act on it. Patience is not his greatest virtue. But I will go on the record: I do not know anyone who has done more for (mentally ill) consumers than Dave."
Kahler is intelligent, logical, articulate, passionate, long-winded, feisty, combative and, once he gets going, about as difficult to slow as a speeding BART train.
"Our system is bankrupt," Kahler said over a cup of tea at a downtown Concord restaurant. "Now, if the new governor rescinds the auto tax, that's (more money) swiped from our county. And the system before this was dysfunctional.
"If you are mentally ill without a support network you don't stand a chance."
He credits NAMI for having become his pillar of support, his fix. After his son died, how would he survive without the families of mentally ill people who understood his grief?
Kahler spends a lot of time now focusing on the strained mental health system; he wants to establish a mental health court.
Studies show that about 5 percent of the adult population suffers from a serious and chronic form of mental illness, he said. In other words, 45,000 of Contra Costa County's approximately 900,000 residents are dealing with serious mental health issues.
"But our (health services division) budget is $500 million," Kahler said. "The mental health division works with $87 million. There are 3,000 people in our system at any given time. What happens to the other 42,000 people? They are at home with their parents or hiding under a bridge. But they're here."
Kahler is 70. He grew up in tiny Morris, Minn., where his father, John, ran an 80-room hotel during the Depression.
The Kahler family has a legacy of running hotels in Minnesota dating to 1868.
"Our family life was absolutely idyllic," said Kahler, who described his father as a gentle, apolitical soul who kept his worries to himself.
In the 1940s, the family operated a lakeside resort north of Brainerd, Minn. There, the young Kahler, a thrill-seeker, fell in love with water-skiing. He toured with a professional outfit in 1953, surfing barefoot across the country.
He attended the University of Minnesota, where he learned the skills that would lead to a successful career as a restaurateur and small-business operator.
"He was a wild man," said Kahler's old college roommate, Jeremy Blodgett, who lives in San Rafael and remains a close friend. "He was a person who, in a sense, felt that anything can be done. He was a can-do kind of guy."
Kahler started his business career in California in the early 1960s, when he became a managing partner in a plastics company in San Rafael.
In 1973, he moved to Concord and bought a four-bedroom house on St. Francis Drive, where he lives today with his daughter, Elisabeth, her husband, John, and his 16-year-old grandson, David Espineira.
Life took a sharp twist in the early 1990s. His son, a soft-spoken, gifted transmission mechanic, had started to fall apart.
"We were the typical family, doing its thing, and mental illness comes along -- whammo!" Kahler said. "The sensation is like being in the middle of a hurricane."
John was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, or manic depression, in 1994. This serious brain disorder incites wild mood swings and periods of deep lethargy, and occurs in about 1 percent of the adult population.
On Memorial Day 1994, John, distraught over a breakup with a girlfriend, hopped on a freight train and lost himself for two months, rattling across the country. It was a significant breakdown because he had ditched a court-ordered rehab program. He was a fugitive.
In a nearly 10-year struggle, Dave Kahler navigated the mental health system, "a minefield without a map." He fought for services, tried to shield his son from irrational choices and the perpetual tug of temptation.
He used to pin all of his son's erratic behavior on immaturity, drugs or booze. He did not understand the criminal justice system, the health resources available, mental illness and its tight grip on his son's mind.
John, in the meantime, racked up a history of misdemeanor convictions in his early 20s. He had three DUIs, the last of which prompted a judge to put him in a court-ordered rehab program.
"It was a gift; he could have been sent to prison," Kahler said. "But John did not see it this way."
By September 2002, Kahler's son had assaulted him four times in the previous four years. Kahler filed a restraining order that month, reporting that John had "knocked him to the ground and then continued to pummel me for an extended period of time."
Kahler, though, never quit, writing often to judges, pleading for compassion.
He always held out hope that John would learn to manage his illness, curb his manic outbursts, reach a "plateau."
This is why he called the cops, obtained a restraining order, hid the car or its keys. He wanted his son to hold a job, earn some friends, take a critical step to self-confidence.
"Dave would think nothing of driving from here to Los Angeles to pick up his son at a police station," said his friend, Blodgett. "He was the opposite of an absent parent. He saved him, kept him from bottoming out."
In his final days, John Kahler was living in a $500-a-month Concord apartment, paid for by his father. Dave had secured a restraining order against his son in March, but allowed him to sleep on the sofa one night. John seemed surprised.
Elisabeth said the three weeks that followed were "the greatest," as she and her brother watched a lot of Christian TV and read the Bible.
John never left again until the day he pulled on a nice flannel shirt, climbed into his 1991 Nissan Stanza and steered his way to the Golden Gate Bridge.
The restraining order is still posted inside the front door, an awkward family memory. Kahler is not really sure why he has not removed it. It is just there.
posted by Corey at 8:01 PM
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