Memphis shooting suspect was just in mental hospital

The man charged with fatally shooting a Memphis hand surgeon had just gotten out of a mental health hospital before the attack, his aunt says, maintaining that he should never have been released.

Larry Pickens, 29, was charged with first-degree murder in Tuesday’s fatal shooting of Dr. Benjamin Mauck.

He is accused of attacking the surgeon in the exam room at the Campbell Clinic in Collierville, Tennessee, after scoping out his waiting room for hours.

Louise Pickens told the Daily Mail that a week before the murder, her nephew was treated at the Crestwyn Behavioral Health facility in Memphis for one night, but he was let out the next day.

“They let him go and they shouldn’t have,” she said.

Pickens is diagnosed with “schizophrenic bipolar paranoid disorder,” his aunt said. “He thinks that people are after him, people are doing stuff to him and everything.”

Pickens has been in and out of mental health facilities for years, his aunt said.

His condition “really got worse” when he was in 11th grade, she said, adding that he’d been treated repeatedly at Lakeside Behavioral Health in Memphis. 

Mauck had been Larry’s doctor, Louise Pickens confirmed.

She said he had operated on her nephew’s finger, but said she did not know his motive in allegedly shooting Mauck.

Pickens had a long history of run-ins with the law, including when he knifed his stepfather four times and left him with two punctured lungs, according to sources and an incident report from the attack.

He did not have a criminal record in Collierville but had called the cops several times on other people.

In April 2022, he called the police claiming someone had broken into his home.

After the cops arrived, he told the officers he was schizophrenic and off his medication, according to local Memphis outlet WATE.

In a more menacing incident, he alarmed staff and customers at a barbershop when he complained about his haircut. 

One of the barbershop owners said that he saw Pickens feeling around in his pocket as if he was reaching for a weapon, but he did not pull one out.

Instead, Pickens called the cops and said someone else had threatened him – which they had not.

That barbershop owner told WATE he was concerned for his staff.

“Someone felt threatened, and whenever we feel threatened, then we have to take care of our business,” he said. “I thought he had some sort of mental disorder. just off his actions and how he was carrying himself.

Pickens was not charged in any of the incidents.

“For my nephew, it’s really sad,” his aunt said. ” And I don’t wish that upon no one.”