A Mother Cries for Saúl

The first time I met Saúl Nunez was inside a chapel at Rikers Island in 2019,

where he'd already spent more than two years in the jail's mental health unit.

"I didn't always have schizophrenia," Saúl said softly. "I remember a time when I was fine and didn't hear voices."

Saúl Antonio Nunez was born on September 17, 1997, the youngest son of a Dominican-born mother, Rosa Nazar. She remembered that Saul didn't speak much to classmates in kindergarten but did become more social as an adolescent. He even joined the Boy Scouts. But Saúl started talking about conspiracy theories in his middle teen years and needed help from a psychologist to get through graduation from his Bronx high school. Then, the voices started.

"I tried to overdose on Advil," Saúl once told me. "I just wanted everything to stop."

Saúl Nunez as a teen with his mother, Rosa.

At one point, Saúl bought a cane and would carry it around as he walked the streets. His mother explained Saúl's reasoning during a 2017 interview with PIX11 News.

"He said, 'I see devils," Rosa Nazar recalled, quoting her son. 'With the cane, I feel protected from the devil. All the devils get sucked at the bottom of the cane.'"

On June 2, 2017, Saúl was captured on surveillance camera hitting 91 year old Juan Llorens on the head with the cane, as the elderly man walked on Broadway in upper Manhattan. Then 19, Saúl was taken into police custody and brought to the Bellevue Hospital psychiatric ward, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Even though Juan Llorens had not suffered a serious, physical injury, Saúl was charged with Assault in the First degree and sent to Rikers Island, because his single mother--a part-time substitute teacher--did not have the means to post $75,000 bail.

Saúl Nunez bought a cane, as a teen, to “suck out” imaginary devils.

Just over a month later, my PIX11 news crew and I followed Rosa Nazar to a section of Broadway in Inwood, Manhattan near a park. There, Nazar met Juan Llorens, a bottle collector, sitting on a bench. She asked for his forgiveness, on behalf of her son.

The 91 year old man hugged Rosa Nazar tightly and spoke to her in Spanish.

"I told her she has nothing to be sorry for," Llorens told us. "As soon as I saw him coming at me, I knew that he was sick."

Doctors at Rikers had started giving Saúl Nunez monthly injections of the drug Invega, and it seemed to relieve some of his psychiatric symptoms. Schizophrenia often is diagnosed in young men between the ages of 19 and 22. Saúl spoke about some side effects from his meds, which included weight gain, during the Rikers interview and explained his reason for speaking to us: "I just wanted a voice," he said.

Rosa Nazar attended every one of her son's court hearings over a 29 month period, always carrying Saúl's red plaid jacket, just in case he was released. On November 8, 2019, Saúl's mother joyfully escorted her son out of the courthouse in lower Manhattan, after he successfully completed a mental health program. His record would be wiped clean, if he continued his visits to a therapist and remained out of trouble. Saúl was 22 years old.

Rosa Nazar sitting outside courtroom in 2019 with Saul’s red, plaid jacket.

Juan Llorens, the older man Saúl had hit with the cane, died the year before. On the courthouse steps, Saúl observed, "I see God in that man, because God is forgiveness."

In the five years that followed, Rosa Nazar said her son turned increasingly to Jesus for comfort. His brief attempt to live independently at special housing in Manhattan ended, because Rosa recalled, "There were a lot of bed bugs there. He had to leave."

Saúl Nunez going home with his mother in 2019, after mental health court released him from custody.

Saúl went back home to Riverdale to live with his mom, who told me, "He was very well for a while, and then the medication seemed to stop working."

It is the tragic reality of life with schizophrenia that medicines can cease being effective, and the challenge begins again to find a treatment that works.

"They changed his medicine to pills," Rosa Nazar told me this week. "Then he went to the hospital. He stopped eating for 14 days. He wanted to be with God."

Rosa said her son was in and out of hospitals the last year, sometimes self-admitted.

She said a security guard treated Saúl roughly in one instance.

"They treat the mentally ill very cruel," Rosa said.

Rosa noted one of Saúl's recent hospital visits cost Medicaid $50,000 for a ten day stay.

His mother recalled that Saúl drank too much coffee and smoked cigarettes, as he grappled with his illness. At night, when she would go to sleep, Saúl would suffer from insomnia and walk up and down the stairs to get a smoke outside. He mentioned suicide one day, but said he didn't want to take his life at home.

"He said, 'I'll never go back to a mental hospital,'" Rosa remembered. "He continued with his medication and therapy."

Rosa recalled that Friday, November 1st, was one of Saúl's last nights home.

"We voted early," she said, "through the mail."

The next night, Saúl continued his habit of going up and down the stairs to get a smoke.

Then came Sunday morning, November 3rd.

"When I saw his bed in the morning, I didn't see him," Rosa told me. "The police arrived about 10 o'clock."

Saúl's lifeless body had been discovered near the first 'goal post' at the soccer field in Van Cortlandt Park, a short distance from Rosa Nazar's home. He used the metal frame to die by apparent suicide.

"I locked myself in for six hours, before I even called my brother," Rosa told me.

Now, Rosa Nazar is trying to find a way to bury her son with dignity, a mother who gave every ounce of love and devotion to Saúl to make up for whatever she lacked in finances.

Speaking of the medical examiner's office, Rosa said, "They can only hold Saúl until Friday, November 15, otherwise they will bury him in a mass grave." Rosa is hoping she can get an extension on that deadline. She just started a GoFundMe, hoping the public can assist her with Saúl's burial arrangements, no matter how small the donation.

In recent days, Rosa thinks her son found a way to console her, as she grappled with her emotional pain. She kept remembering how talented Saúl was as a writer.

"I was so, so sad," Rosa said. "I begged him, 'Saúl, I just want a sign that you're ok.'

You cannot believe how destroyed I was."

Rosa said one day, at about midnight, she heard some music.

"My radio was on, and I don't remember putting it on," Rosa told me.

She said the radio was playing religious music.

"The lyrics said, 'It's time for celebration. I'm with God.'"

Saúl Nunez leaves court in November 2019 with mom, Rosa, 29 months after he went to Rikers.