IDAHO FALLS — District Judge Bruce Pickett handed down his sentence to Douglass Taylor, 34, for the murder of Hermann Hans Woerrlein on Wednesday, nearly two years after Taylor stabbed his victim 17 times and slit his throat.

“This is a horrific case,” Pickett said. “It’s also a horrifically sad case.”

Pickett sentenced Taylor to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 27 years. In his decision, he cited Taylor’s decision to stop taking medication to treat his schizophrenia and that Taylor admitted he had planned the murder in detail before carrying it out.

Taylor was arrested in March 2020. He had been living with Woerrlein and another man in a home meant for those recently released from a mental care hospital.

Taylor had told police he killed Woerrlein because he believed Woerrlein, who is from Germany, was a Nazi sympathizer who was planning to create a secret cult. Police never found any indication that Taylor’s claims about Woerrlein were true.

Public Defender Jason Gustaves shared childhood photos of Taylor with the court while describing his life, particularly after his father, who the family believed had undiagnosed bipolar disorder, committed suicide when Taylor was 14. His mental health problems escalated when he entered adulthood, as Taylor reportedly fled to Canada to find “religious sanctuary.”

Gustaves said Taylor learned to check himself into a hospital when he was struggling with voices. He said based on records that Taylor was hospitalized at least 29 times between 2009 and 2020, though he added that the family thought some hospitalizations were unaccounted for.

Taylor’s mother acted as his legal guardian between 2009 and 2015. Her guardianship was terminated at her request after she said Taylor did not want her as a guardian, and that she feared for her safety after Taylor had threatened her.

Gustaves argued Idaho’s mental health treatment program let Taylor down, citing a statement by the judge in the guardianship case, who did not assign Taylor a new guardian.

“Well, maybe this is one of those situations that has to get worse before it gets better,” the judge reportedly said.

Gustaves also cited reports on Taylor’s behavior made days before he was released to the home he lived in with Woerrlein. Staff said he was refusing to take medication, not participating in group activities and engaging in “bizarre” behavior.

In a letter to Pickett, Taylor’s sister said she blamed the murder in part on Idaho’s poor mental health care. She said her brother had once been fixated on Nazi Germany as well as the German nihilist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and that putting him in an unsupervised home with a German man was a recipe for disaster.

Gustaves said that after Taylor was released from the mental health facility, he initially got along well with Woerrlein, discussing history and philosophy with him. Assistant Chief Deputy Prosecutor Alex Muir said he was “a kind, caring man who struggled himself with mental illness.”

Muir said Taylor’s schizophrenia was not the only thing that mattered in the case.

“Defense spent a lot of time discussing mental health, which is certainly a component of this case, but was not the entirety of this case,” Muir said.

Muir cited a statement by Taylor in the presentence investigation in which he described buying the knife with the intention of using it to kill Woerrlein. Taylor also reportedly planned to stab Woerrlein in the arms and chest to immobilize him, which fits the description of Woerrlein’s injuries.

Muir argued that Taylor could have checked himself into a hospital as he had several times before, but instead chose not to seek treatment and to go off his medications.

The prosecution did take Taylor’s mental health into consideration, Muir said, in deciding not to seek the death penalty against him. Muir also revealed that Woerrlein’s family had said they did not want Taylor to be sentenced to death.

Gustaves compared his client’s experience to people being locked in their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that mental health was the primary factor in the murder.

“Imagine being locked in your own mind with voices urging violence for 14 years,” Gustaves said.