Seattle Man Kills Parents and Tries to Claim Inheritance

Joshua Hoge doesn't need much spending money these days. Behind the locked doors of Western State Hospital, his basic needs — food, clothes and a constant stream of antipsychotic medications to keep his delusions at bay — are paid for by the state.

But Hoge has the chance to one day become a wealthy man.

From inside Western State, where he's spent most of his time since stabbing his mother and brother to death with a butcher knife in 1999, Hoge is fighting to inherit part of his mother's estate.

Should he succeed, it could be a windfall for the 37-year-old schizophrenic, who was found not guilty of the slayings by reason of insanity.

After Hoge killed his mother, Pamela Kissinger, her family won $800,000 in a civil suit against King County when it was determined that a public-health clinic had failed to give Hoge his medication and was partially responsible for the slayings.

Hoge's claim to that money is now poised to set legal precedent for interpretation of Washington's sometimes-vague Slayer Statute: the law that prohibits most killers from profiting off their victims. While some states have decided whether people found not guilty by reason of insanity can inherit the estates of their victims, Washington has not.

The case was set to be decided last month by the state Court of Appeals. But the appellate court sent it back to King County Superior Court, which originally decided Hoge could not inherit money from Kissinger. The appellate court said the King County court made a mistake in its original determination and must reconsider the case. No date has been set.