Ryan Nichols, the 26-year-old man arrested for stabbing an 80-year-old King Soopers employee in the back Monday morning, has struggled with schizophrenia for years.
Two months ago, after a bipolar man who lived with his mother was accused of killing a 7-Eleven clerk in Denver, Ryan Nichols’ father, Jim Nichols, talked to The Denver Post for a story about the difficulties experienced by parents with adult children who are mentally ill.
At the time, anti-psychotic medication was helping his son, but Jim Nichols knew that mental illness can be a roller coaster.
“Things look pretty good,” Nichols said in June, “but we’re always ready for the bottom to drop out.”
Ryan Nichols was arrested Monday night at his parents’ home in Westminster.
He is accused of stabbing Dean Withers, 80, early Monday while Withers worked at a King Soopers store at West 103rd Avenue and Federal Boulevard. As Withers walked past, Ryan Nichols, who was loitering near the front of the store, said “Hi” to the older man and then stabbed him in the back, police said.
Withers remains in serious condition in St. Anthony Central Hospital’s intensive-care unit but is expected to be moved to a regular room today, hospital spokeswoman Bev Lilly said.
On Tuesday afternoon, Jim Nichols said that one of his family’s “biggest concerns is not only Ryan but with Mr. Withers and his family. We want them to know Ryan doesn’t hate senior citizens. He is very close to his grandparents. It was a random thing.”
Cheri Bishop, a program director for the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, heard about Ryan Nichols’ arrest Tuesday as her organization was preparing petitions protesting mental-illness budget cuts that they will deliver to the governor’s office Friday.
“This is a horrible tragedy, and the less opportunity people have for treatment, the more tragedies we are going to have,” said Bishop, who knows the Nichols family because of their work with NAMI. “We don’t have enough psychiatric beds as it is; our state is 50th in the nation.”
Ryan Nichols’ childhood was trouble-free. He did well in high school, dated a cheerleader and graduated a semester early.
When trouble started, his parents first thought it was teenage rebellion. Nichols has been arrested numerous times since 2005 on charges including drug possession, assault and criminal mischief.
“Fortunately or unfortunately, we were able to convince the court that he had a safe place to stay and that he was getting good service from Kaiser Permanente,” Jim Nichols said.
Ryan was diagnosed as schizophrenic two years ago. He later spent about 10 days at Exempla West Pines inpatient psychiatric-care center, where he was stabilized on medication.
Recently, the medications seemed to be working.
He took up kickboxing at the gym and was beginning to get his sense of humor back. He’d started to see his old friends again. He had a part-time job, simple office work at an insurance company. His parents never heard him slip out in the middle of the night.
“We just didn’t see this coming,” Nichols said. “We did as much as we could to make sure he took his medications.”
Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com
