Two Woodstock doctors said man charged with murder in 2020 crash was having ‘manic episode’

A psychiatrist who testified Thursday that the man charged with murder in connection to a fatal 2020 crash near Hebron was “not in complete touch with reality.”

Psychiatrist Iyad Alkhouri treated William Bishop, 44, of Chicago, at Northwestern Medicine Behavioral Health Services in Woodstock in the days after the May 18, 2020, collision that killed Jason Miller, 41, of McHenry, and severely injured Miller’s passenger and co-worker, Rory Fiali, 58, also of McHenry.

Alkhouri was one of three psychiatrists who testified on behalf of the defense during the fourth day of Bishop’s bench trial before Judge Michael Coppedge. The defense’s testimony would not include Bishop himself, he told Coppedge Thursday.

Alkhouri said Bishop – who also faces two counts each of aggravated battery and aggravated driving under the influence – was “distressed ... agitated, restless and ... (having) illogical and incoherent chain of thoughts.”

At times, Bishop exhibited “pressured speech,” meaning he was talking very quickly and it was hard to comprehend what he was saying, and his thoughts were not connected or logical, said Alkhouri, who diagnosed Bishop with bipolar mania with severe psychotic features.

Bishop’s attorneys, who said Bishop admitted himself voluntarily, have said he was suffering a psychotic break and in the throes of a manic episode when he crashed into the work van driven by Miller. McHenry County prosecutors reject that defense and say he acted intentionally and criminally.

Miller had been eastbound on Vanderkarr Road about 2:30 p.m., heading from a job site in Harvard, when the crash occurred. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Fiali sustained life-altering injuries and is currently living in a rehabilitation facility, prosecutors said.

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William Bishop looks back at the people in the gallery during a break in his bench trial before McHenry County Judge Michael Coppedge on Monday, Oct. 17, 2022, in the McHenry County courthouse in Woodstock. (Gregory Shaver — gshaver@shawmedia.com/Gregory Shaver for Shaw Media )

In a recorded interview with police played earlier this week, Bishop said he had not been sleeping, been paranoid for days and left his apartment in downtown Chicago earlier that day to take a drive to clear his head. As he was driving west on Vanderkarr Road, Bishop said he heard a message through the radio to crash into the oncoming van and kill himself.

Alkhouri said Bishop told him the voices dared him to cross the center line and crash into the van. The voices told him, “Just do it, just do it,” the doctor said Bishop told him.

The doctor said Bishop also was experiencing euphoria and paranoia; was detached from reality, hearing, seeing and feeling things that were not real; and was speaking as if there was an almost parallel existence in which the crash occurred. Bishop’s symptoms were those of someone having “a manic episode,” Alkhouri said.

When someone is in a “euphoric state, they don’t realize the consequences of how serious their actions will be,” Alkhouri said.

The doctor did not know if Bishop, who after the hospital was discharged into police custody, knew what he had done or if he could handle being told during his stay in the hospital what he had done.

Bishop told police that he had been drinking beer in the days prior to the crash and smoked marijuana the day of. A toxicology exam showed he had 10.8 nanograms of THC in his blood, twice the legal limit in the hours following the crash.

When defense attorney Robert Deters asked if alcohol and marijuana could trigger a psychotic manic episode on its own, Alkhouri said no. Marijuana can cause paranoia and suspicion but not a psychotic manic break like Bishop was experiencing, he said.

“The symptoms he was displaying are out of normal for what substances could create,” he said.

Bishop remained in the acute treatment unit of the hospital for about three weeks, longer than normal and was kept away from other patients, the doctor said.

Dr. Elizabeth McMasters, a psychiatry specialist at Northwestern Medicine Woodstock Hospital, also testified for the defense Thursday and echoed much of what Alkhouri said.

She also treated Bishop during this time and in addition to what Alkhouri described, McMasters said Bishop had hallucinations and was “suspicious, agitated and had an air of superiority and grandiosity,” which are symptoms of mania, she said.

He was kept in an acute unit, didn’t sleep except for a couple of hours at a time, believed someone was going to kill him, and required more nursing staff and less stimulation, she said.

“Every time I met with him he believed he was getting subliminal messages on the unit through staff and other patients,” McMasters said.

McMasters, who also diagnosed Bishop as having a chronic marijuana-use disorder, said she did not know if he was intoxicated at the time of the crash.

She also did not feel during the times she met with him that he understood what happened on May 18, 2020.

He was prescribed medicine to treat his “severe” Type 1 bipolar, psychosis and acute mania, the doctors said.

When Deters asked each doctor if they thought Bishop was “malingering” or faking a mental illness, they both said no.

Dr. Carl Wahlstrom, a psychiatrist from Chicago, also testified Thursday. Wahlstrom also interviewed Bishop and reviewed earlier doctors’ notes and police interviews before coming to the same opinion as Alkhouri and McMasters.

Wahlstrom noted Bishop’s symptoms in the days leading up to – and on the day and moment of – the crash and said Bishop was suffering symptoms of bipolar disorder with psychotic features. He said Bishop, who had documented bouts with bipolar disorder in 2013 and 2017, was not able to appreciate the criminality of his conduct on May 18, 2020.

Assistant State’s Attorney Ashley Romito sought to poke holes in the psychiatrists’ opinions. She highlighted Wahlstrom’s report that Bishop told him a different story for where he was driving that day and said that he did not plan on committing suicide.

She noted that Bishop regularly smoked marijuana as a way of self medicating and was under the influence at the time of the crash. She highlighted that two hours after the crash his levels were still at 10.8 nanograms, more than twice the legal limit.

Romito said after the crash, Bishop told people at the scene the “accident was my fault,” showing he “appreciated almost immediately that was not a good idea.”

Romito also said that on the day of the crash, he was able to bathe, get dressed, go to a fast food restaurant, order breakfast and a soda, was in an emotional state, self-medicated with marijuana and chose to drive.

While in the hospital he was talking to attorneys and showing concern for his legal situation and that it was going to cost him a lot of money, Romito said.

“Bipolar plus psychosis doesn’t always mean insanity,” Romito said. “Hearing voices doesn’t always mean insane.”

The trial will resume Friday morning.