In the days after Daniel Weisberger murdered his little brother Pascal, and nearly killed his father, the locals in the Upper Florida Keys rallied around the grieving family.
The local animal shelter where he volunteered hung a portrait of Pascal in his Boy Scout uniform. A fox rescue group added a plaque with his name to their fox house. His classmates finished his science fair project. At his grave overlooking mangroves and a seagrass meadow in Florida Bay, friends left conch shells and painted rocks. And they vowed to support Daniel, urged by the boys’ father, who squarely blamed Pascal’s murder on Daniel’s mental illness and his ex-wife, whom he accused of abusing the boys.
That account would become the basis of Daniel’s legal case — a rarely used insanity defense with an even lower rate of success. Over the years, Daniel had seen numerous therapists and psychiatrists. Those assessments portrayed a troubled kid, even if they failed to adequately diagnose his illness.
In Episode 1 of Keeper and Killer, we look at the beginnings of Daniel’s case and how the criminal justice system deals with mentally ill people.