Larry Pickens, charged with Memphis shooting, previously knifed stepdad: sources

The patient arrested for gunning down a beloved Tennessee surgeon earlier this week was previously charged with attacking his stepfather with a butcher knife, The Post can exclusively report.

Larry Pickens, 29, knifed his stepfather four times and left him with two punctured lungs, according to sources and an incident report from the attack.

He was also was institutionalized approximately 10 times as a result of his mental health before his alleged attack at Dr. Benjamin Mauck’s surgery earlier this week, according to sources.

In a bizarre and eerie twist, the man who nursed Pickens’ stepfather back to health after his earlier attack was Dr. Mauck, who leaves behind a wife and two young children.

The motive for Pickens’ targeted attack on the surgeon, whom police reports show he was a patient of, remains unknown.

After the shooting, witnesses said Pickens calmly walked out the clinic and was arrested by police minutes later. He stands accused of first-degree murder, and is being held in jail on $1.2 million bond.

“He needs help. He doesn’t need to [be] out [among the public],” the source told The Post, adding he was prone to violent outbursts that caused those around him to feel like they were “always walking on eggshells.”

The source, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of repercussions, said Pickens’ stepfather, Leamon Osborne, was eventually convinced by Pickens’ mother, Jennifer Fields-Osborne, not to press charges against the him, despite spending a month in hospital.

The source said Pickens was jobless and living on the streets at least two months before the attack on Mauck.

October 31, 2016

Pickens was arrested on the night of Halloween 2016 for aggravated assault/domestic violence, according to a Shelby County Sheriff’s Office incident report. Records show he was initially held on charges of criminal attempt of first-degree murder.

Pickens, then 23, was arguing with his mother just before 8 p.m. local time when Osborne intervened and asked him to leave, the incident report states.

Fields-Osborne told police Pickens then went to his upstairs bedroom “and returned to the victim’s presence with a kitchen knife and stated, ‘What now?’”

“[A]s she pleaded with the suspect to put the knife down he aggressively charged at the victim, subsequently striking him with the knife in the upper torso,” the report states.

Fields-Osborne said “the victim ran out the front door attempting to escape the assault, however the suspect ran out the door behind him, thus striking him multiple times in the back.”

The report describes the blade as a “kitchen style butcher knife.”

Obsorne suffered stab wounds to the left side of the chest, upward, and three in the back of the neck, the source claimed. He was rushed to a local hospital with critical injuries.

He suffered two punctured lungs as a result, was hospitalized for a month and spent years after that recovering from the injuries, during which time he was a patient of Mauck.

Pickens then allegedly grabbed a bag and ran from the house, the source said. Pickens was ultimately taken into custody, treated for a hand injury and charged, the report states.

But Pickens’ mother “begged the stepfather not to press charges,” the source said.

“The wife told him, ‘If [police] call, please don’t answer,’” and Osborne never pursued the charges further.

But the case never went to trial after when the step father stopped co-operating with the justice system and any records beyond the initial arrest and charging appears to have been scrubbed from the Tennessee digital court system.

The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office and the local sheriff’s office both referred The Post to their online databases for records related to the case, but none could be accessed.

The Post has attempted to contact all individuals named in the incident report.

Who is Larry Pickens?

Pickens was a paranoid recluse, who often spent his days in his room or on a computer, according to the source.

He allegedly destroyed all pictures of him and “didn’t want the camera on him,” the source said.

“Talking to his mom, I think they figured that he was struggling with something.”

He largely had no friends and started to have outbursts directed at those around him.

“He never came out of his room,” he said. “He’d sit on a computer, would not ever come out and socialize with anyone. It was like he was isolating himself.”

Pickens’ condition grew bad enough for him to be treated at a mental institution nine or 10 times, the source said. And police were frequently called to help Pickens, or help others to help him, he recalled.

The source, who is close to the family, said despite Pickens being violent, he never seemed like he could become deadly.

July 11, 2023

Collierville Police Department rushed to the Campbell Clinic around 2 p.m. Tuesday and discovered Mauck’s lifeless body in an examination room.

Pickens, had shot him three times in his upper abdomen, neck and chest, after spending “hours” in the waiting room, police have said.

A local politician claimed Pickens had threatened a clinic employee for days prior to the shooting, though that report has not been verified.

Asked if the victim regretted that he did not pursue charges in 2016, the source said yes. But he noted the 2016 case against Pickens was “not the only one.”

“Someone, you know, they lost their life,” he said, speaking about Mauck.

“But at the exact same token, I’m not sure if it would have made a difference. Because there was more that happened after October 31 of 2016,” the source paused. “Multiple times.”

With Olivia Land.