Mom: Prison for mentally ill son ' isn’t justice. This is another tragedy'

In the months before Matthew Hayden killed his teen sisters, he was hearing voices.

Hayden, then 21, lived with his parents and several siblings in the family’s Colerain Township home. He kept to himself, his father said.

No one knew he had schizophrenia.

Eventually, Hayden began carrying a handgun to protect himself from people he thought were going to harm him, one of his attorneys said Wednesday.

“He didn’t know who these people were. He couldn’t identify them. He didn’t talk about it,” the attorney, Norm Aubin, said at Hayden’s sentencing in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. “But he knew in his mind… somebody was going to try to hurt him.”

The early morning of Oct. 21, 2015, Aubin said the voices again were talking to Hayden.

At about 2:30 a.m., Hayden’s sisters, Sarah, 16, and Elizabeth, 17, along with 17-year-old Josh Hacker were inside a minivan parked in the driveway of the family’s home.

Hayden walked up to the vehicle and fired numerous shots with a 9 mm handgun. Police said he emptied one magazine, reloaded and continued shooting.

Sarah and Elizabeth were killed. Hacker was struck by 10 bullets but survived.

“To this day,” Aubin said, “Matthew still does not know why he did this.”

Hayden – who was sentenced by Judge Robert Winkler to 56 years to life in prison – wasn’t diagnosed with a mental illness until after the shooting.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Aubin said Hayden has schizophrenia.

Related:Treatment ordered for man accused of killing sisters

The 23-year-old’s mental health has been a focus of the case from the beginning. He has been undergoing treatment and taking medication, including drugs for psychosis.

Last year, a psychiatrist and a forensic psychologist determined he didn’t meet the criteria for a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity defense. Both found that Hayden understood the wrongfulness of what he did. He pleaded guilty in February to two counts of aggravated murder and one count of attempted murder.

Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier said Wednesday that Hayden’s mental illness is the reason his office didn’t seek the death penalty. He told Winkler that Hayden should stay behind bars for the rest of his life.

“He is the most dangerous combination you can have in the justice system," Piepmeier said. "He’s mentally unstable and he’s violent.”

Standing in front of Winkler’s bench, Hayden mostly looked to the floor. When Winkler asked if he wanted to give a statement, he looked up and said in a quiet voice:

“I just would like you to know that I’m very sorry for what I had done. It was a horrible mistake.”

Hayden’s parents have forgiven him. They said they didn't want prosecutors to pursue charges in the deaths of their daughters.

"We don’t feel this is a criminal act. This was an act of insanity," his mother, Angela Hayden, said in an interview.

She said she was led to believe the sentence would fall between 20 and 30 years – something she had come to accept.

"This isn’t justice. This is another tragedy," she said. "And our family already has been through so much."

Hayden's father, Douglas Hayden, said his son was never violent and had no criminal record. He described him as “a normal boy, growing up.”

“There were things going on in his head that we didn’t know about,” he said, adding: "We want him to get help."

Matthew Hayden was one of seven children and had attended Colerain High School until the 12th grade. According to his father, he was finishing his high school diploma through online classes.

Douglas Hayden said he still hasn’t fully paid for his daughters’ funerals. A memorial fund, he said, has been set up for Sarah and Elizabeth Hayden. Donations can be made at any local Fifth Third Bank branch.

“Every single day I wake up and I’m still living like it was the day of the incident,” he said.

Angela Hayden said she visited her son every week at a mental health facility where he was held. There also were times she had to visit him in the county jail.

"Looking at a child in a cage who you know is ill – that is beyond description," she said. "No, I don't have any words for that."

Enquirer photographer Carrie Cochran contributed to this report.