This year-long series of investigative reports uncovers disturbing details of a horrific suicide and two murders surrounding psychiatric research at the University of Minnesota. A hospital insider came forward with secret recordings which portray a “culture of fear” and a “research at all costs” attitude in which the wellbeing of extremely vulnerable patients takes a back seat to having them participate in drug trials. The series includes a profile of one patient whose own medical records provide compelling evidence he was coerced into taking an experimental drug that nearly drove him to commit suicide. Another report reveals the haunting case of a UM psychiatrist who diagnosed a teenager with a mental illness and determined he should be medicated to reduce the threat of carrying out violent behaviors. But the doctor did not disclose his findings to the boy’s family. Weeks later the boy, who still was unmedicated, went on a killing spree.
