23-Year-Old UK Man Misdiagnosed With Autism Kills Mother

After his mother, Lorraine Cullen, was fatally murdered, a 23-year-old man named Alan Williams acted bizarrely after his spiraling mental health was misdiagnosed as autism. 

Paranoid schizophrenia caused Williams to believe that his mother wanted to hurt him falsely. Then, on May 10, 2022, at her Huyton, Liverpool, house, he viciously assaulted her with two or three knives. Since the murder, Williams has been confined in a maximum-security inpatient facility after being detained under the Mental Health Act.

According to Williams’s treating forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Melanie Higgins, the first diagnosis of autism three years ago was a devastating error that prevented him from receiving treatment for his paranoid schizophrenia. No diagnosis was identified, and no treatment was administered to Williams during his 2021 admission to the Coniston ward at Whiston Hospital near St. Helens. 

Dr. Higgins said that the family had been teased for attempting to seek his treatment when “autism” was already the diagnosis.

His elder sister Kayleigh and other grieving family spoke highly of Williams, praising his kindness and compassion. In her impact statement, she went on to say that six months prior to the catastrophe, he had thought the TV was advising him to seek solace in the woods, and he warned her not to drink the “poisoned tea” their grandmother had prepared. 

Whiston Hospital personnel reassured his family he was sleeping well after a week there, but they were aware he was up all night updating his Facebook status.

Fearing his grandmother might attempt to have him killed, Williams kept a knife on him after his release. He also feared his mother was going to kill his sister by breaking her neck or drowning her.

Dr. Higgins said that, tragically, he was earnestly acting in defense of his sister and saving her life.

Williams was found to be a charming, kind, and caring young guy who, under normal circumstances, would never have acted in such a way, according to Judge Andrew Menary, KC, the Recorder of Liverpool, who issued an indefinite hospital order on him.