Man who stabbed woman 20 years ago now helps rehabilitate inmates

Published: Apr. 27, 2022 at 6:50 PM EDT
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TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - Daniel Rodgers has lived with mental illness his entire life. Eventually he hit a breaking point, leaving another person seriously injured because of his actions.

Rodgers has schizoaffective disorder and says he didn’t have it under control in February of 2002.

He spoke to 13abc about his mental state at the time.

“I was psychotic, and I was thinking I was the prophet Daniel out of the Bible, that I had identified that abomination causes desolation, and that the end of the world was pending and people were trying to shoot at me, trying to steal my soul, trying to take over. They were reading my mind and controlling my thoughts.”

After being in and out of a mental institution and refusing to take his medicine, Rodgers says he snapped. He was driving a garbage truck in Wood County at the time.

“I walked out of the truck while I was doing my trash route and stabbed a woman. I stabbed her 13 times so it was probably a three-inch knife and it was pretty gruesome, pretty horrific,” Rodgers said.

Incredibly, the woman survived.

Rodgers’ case went to court where he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He spent the next four years in the Northwest Ohio Psychiatric Hospital learning how to control of his mental illness and reenter society as a reformed man.

Rodgers says he is proof that with the right treatment, rehabilitation is possible.

“I have hope because I’m one of those guys where the worst came to the worst, and I actually was able to put things together,” says Rodgers. “It may take a lot of time and it may take a lot of hard work, but a person can change. Change is possible.”

Rodgers has taken everything he learned and is now a case manager for the jail program at Unison Health. He shares his story with inmates at the Lucas County Jail, showing them that there is hope for the future.

“I have to be responsible for my recovery, for what I did so I never forget that, and so that maybe it’ll prevent someone from going to that down, dark place where I was at, and hopefully get them off at a place where they’re hitting bottom at a higher level than I did,” Rodgers says. “So I’m hopeful about that.”

In April, Rodgers even won an award recognizing how far he’s come since 2002 and the important work he does to help other people.

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