A Biddeford man stopped over the weekend with a carload of guns and newspaper clippings about “The Dark Knight Rises” theater massacre in Colorado now faces federal charges that could land him in prison for more than 10 years.
His family and friends, meanwhile, say he is not violent – just a person with mental illness who stopped taking his medication, and that they were powerless to get him help.
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The U.S. attorney for Maine on Tuesday charged Timothy Courtois, 49, with possessing firearms while using illegal drugs and lying on a federal form when he purchased a rifle Friday at Cabela’s.
Federal investigators say in court papers that Courtois admitted smoking marijuana and synthetic marijuana, called Spice, both of which are illegal under federal law. If convicted, each charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
A state trooper pulled over Courtois going 112 mph on the Maine Turnpike in York and found a rifle, a shotgun and four handguns in a brand-new Mustang along with a small jar of Spice and a pipe. Courtois told the trooper he was driving to Derry, N.H., to shoot a former employer and that the previous night he had attended a showing of the new Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises,” with a loaded gun.
That was the movie playing Friday in Aurora, Colo., when a man with body armor and dyed red hair opened fire on theatergoers, killing 12.
According to his brother, Courtois has bipolar disorder and recently stopped taking his medication. He has never been violent, and there is no way of telling what he intended and whether he even attended the Batman movie.
“Some of the things he told the troopers he was going to do, it may have been him talking and not being 100 percent correct in the head,” said Cory Courtois, Timothy’s younger brother. “He had some delusions of grandeur. None of it adds up, especially not with what happened in Aurora, Colo.”
Timothy Courtois’ behavior has deteriorated rapidly since the beginning of July, his brother said.
The family has been struggling for weeks to get Courtois medical help, even calling Biddeford police, but he rebuffed their intervention. He responded by calling police to say he was being harassed by his father and brother.
Biddeford police Tuesday released dispatch records showing that officers had visited Courtois’ home at 344 Elm St. several times in July.
On July 7, police described Courtois as very agitated but concluded there was no reason for protective custody.
During some of the police calls, Timothy Courtois complained about being distressed or agitated, but he never threatened himself or anyone else, which is a requirement in Maine for someone to be forcibly committed to the hospital.
On July 9, Courtois went with police voluntarily to Southern Maine Medical Center and he was left in the hospital’s custody, but he was discharged a short time afterward.
“It obviously surprised and shocked me he could go into a facility like that and have trained professionals not be able to diagnose what was going on,” his brother said. “He went in voluntarily, so I would have to assume they couldn’t make him stay.”
Family members alerted police Friday after Courtois bought a new convertible. Police checked with employees at Arundel Ford, who described Courtois as “upbeat and fine” when he made the purchase.
After his arrest Sunday morning, State Police executed a search warrant at the house and found more guns, including a fully automatic assault rifle and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Biddeford Deputy Police Chief Joanne Fiske said police knew Courtois had weapons – he admitted having several guns – but they didn’t know how many and there was no legal reason to take them away.
“It’s very frustrating,” she said.
Courtois’ family also was frustrated. Prior to last weekend, Cory Courtois talked to one of the officers who had dealt with his brother, asking what police could do.
“He asked if he had threatened to harm himself or others. I said, ‘No, he’s not at that state yet,’” Cory Courtois said. “They said without the intent of harm there was nothing they could do except to unfortunately wait for something else to happen.”
Timothy Courtois was a regular kid growing up and in high school, his brother said.
“He seemed perfectly normal, as normal as any older brother, teenage boy, college-bound young man could be. Why it happened, I guess we’ll never really know,” Cory Courtois said.
Cory Courtois was in the Navy years ago when he got a call from his family saying Timothy was having a mental health crisis and was hospitalized at the Bangor Mental Health Institute. He had another episode in the mid to late 1990s, he said.
“They’ve never been violent. He would sort of lose touch with reality a little bit, go out and buy things he couldn’t afford,” his brother said. “He would go buy a car or quit his job without another one lined up. Financial difficulties would ensue.”
Cory Courtois described his brother’s first hospital stay as an involuntary commitment and said there may have been one other time when his brother was involuntarily committed, though he wasn’t sure.
People who have been committed to a psychiatric institution by a judge are barred from buying or owning guns, and states are required to provide that information to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which checks the database after someone fills out a purchase form.
However, not all commitments make the federal database.
Also, doctors in Maine can have someone involuntarily committed for up to three days at the request of police and others if they are a danger to themselves or someone else.
That action, however, does not disqualify someone from owning a gun: It doesn’t grant the person a hearing, and a federal appeals court has ruled that people with mental illness cannot be deprived of the right to buy or carry a gun without such a hearing.
When on his medication, Courtois was a reliable worker and a conscientious family member.
“Since he’s been here, he’s been a model employee, a great team player, my right hand,” said Marc Rousseau of the Rousseau Insurance Agency in Biddeford, just a few doors down the street from where Courtois lived. Courtois had worked there since November 2002.
Courtois was adept with computers and numbers and had even been enlisted by other insurance companies to analyze programs and products to find any glitches, Rousseau said.
Courtois didn’t have many friends outside work, Rousseau said. He was content to go home and play on his computers after work. He did run the sound system when the company had its annual Halloween party, attended by more than a thousand people, Rousseau said.
Rousseau said he knows of one other episode in which Courtois stopped taking his medication.
“He had a small episode about eight years ago here. It got adjusted. We picked it up real quick.” This time, he was not listening.
“There wasn’t any changing his mind. For some reason, he thought he was doing better without it,” Rousseau said. He said many people tried unsuccessfully to intervene.
When Courtois took his medication, he was not manic, but he also was not particularly happy, his brother said. The medicine kept him on an even keel, with no highs or lows.
“He described it as a flat-line existence, waking up, going through the motions, going to bed, never able to enjoy life,” his brother said.
Off his medication, Courtois felt great. But he couldn’t work.
“He was feeling real good. His mind was exploding with ideas of things he could do for himself and for us, ” Rousseau said. “But with that came the inability to concentrate on anything for more than a minute, and then ‘poof,’ he’s gone off on another tangent. We lost him.”
Marc Rousseau’s brother James Rousseau walked Courtois home last week and told him he could not return to work without a doctor’s note. By the next day, Courtois had posted on his Facebook page that he was no longer employed.
Like many people, Rousseau was relieved when he learned that Courtois had been arrested, worried that he would eventually hurt himself or someone else.
Courtois’ condition was evident in the court affidavit filed by ATF Special Agent Daniel Woolbert in support of the federal charges.
It describes how Courtois told them he was going to Derry to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Asked whether he drank, he said not much, that he preferred smoking marijuana. Courtois did not have any marijuana with him, only the synthetic version, which until recently has been legal.
He then asked the agents several times if they could get him some marijuana so that he could smoke and eat Chinese food, according to the affidavit.
Courtois is being held in York County Jail on $50,000 bail on charges of carrying a concealed weapon without a permit and criminal speed. But now that he has been charged federally, he couldn’t be released even if he had the money,
He is charged with two counts of possessing a firearm while being an illegal drug user and one charge of falsifying the federal form used to purchase a gun.
No date has been set for his appearance in federal court.
Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at: dhench@pressherald.com
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