RICHFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — The mother of the man accused of stabbing 11 people at the Walmart in Traverse City said her son needs help for the mental illness that drove him to the kind of violence she didn’t think he was capable of.

Beverly Gille said the mental health system failed her son and society.

“Brad was scared,” she told News 8 on Thursday. “I can guarantee you he was scared. That’s not Brad. That is somebody else. That’s not my son. He’s very, very ill.”

Her son, Bradford Gille, 42, is in the Grand Traverse County Jail on charges of attempted murder and terrorism.

Gille said she barely recognized the man she saw on the TV news the day after the July 26 stabbings — her son, accused of the rampage that sent 11 people to the hospital.

Her son Brad’s childhood photo is the screen saver on her phone. It was taken at his third or fourth birthday at La Senorita Restaurant in Petoskey. He was born in California, the youngest of three boys who were raised in northern Michigan.

“He had a sense of humor,” she said. “He kept us laughing He was great. He was enjoyable to have, you know. Just a typical little boy, you know.”

Then, at 14, she said, he smoked marijuana, still his drug of choice, but that time laced with something. They were living in Pellston.

“He came in and got on his knees. He goes, ‘Mom, I’m in trouble.’ He said, ‘I had some bad pot,'” she recalled. “Dad was there, we’re like holding him, trying to calm him down and it just got worse. He got into a fetal position. We wrapped him up in a blanket, and we took him to ER.”

“We lost Brad at 14. We lost him. But we never stopped loving him.”

Since then, they’ve lived through nearly three decades of psychotic episodes, a diagnosis of schizophrenia and assaults against her and her husband — one that sent her to the hospital.

Beverly Gille said she lost track of how many times her son was institutionalized, only to be released and then stop taking his meds. He was off and on homeless. A mental health worker had warned her not to let him live with her, she said. She and her husband, who died of Covid-19 in 2021, had tried without success to get guardianship.

Her son’s mental condition has put her family “through hell and back, and hell again. And hell again, again, again.”

He was living off Social Security disability, taking bus trips around the country.

There was the bus trip when he was about 30 to Pennsylvania and Ohio, where he was caught running naked down a highway.

In 2016, he dug up a grave at a cemetery in Petoskey, with a shovel stolen from Home Depot, leading to his arrest, a not guilty by reason of insanity plea, and a court-ordered year in a psychiatric hospital.

“He thought his dad was there, and he needed to get his dad out of the tomb,” she said. “He needed to get him out of there, and that was his goal and you know? That’s mental illness.”

She believes the mental health system could have done more.

“They didn’t handle him well. I mean, he’s a very, very sick man now, and he was my child. He was a wonderful little boy and then he got sick, and he’s not going to get better unless he’s treated and he has stability in his life. He needs a place to live,” Beverly Gille said.

She was especially frustrated that mental health workers would refuse to talk to her about her son, citing privacy, when all she wanted to do was help.

“I just want to know my son’s OK. I’m not asking you where he’s at, I’m not asking you anything, but I want to know my son’s OK if you know he’s OK, and if he’s sick tell me he’s sick,” she said.

She said she tried to track him through text messages, last hearing from him on July 24, a short time after yet another out-of-state bus trip. He said he was OK.

Two days later, her son is accused of stabbing 11 people in a rampage at Walmart in Traverse City — arrested after being subdued by Good Samaritans.

She learned about it while watching the news the next morning — recognizing his face on TV.

“I’m mom, to my child, and to see him do that is just … When I saw him, his face, is that Brad, is that Brad? I knew when they said he’s 42 years old, I knew it was him. Because I know how sick he can get,” she said.

Beverly Gille said she feels horrible for the victims.

“It’s not Brad. He’s ill. He’s ill,” she said.

She also had a message for the man who held her son at gunpoint until police arrived.

“I want to thank him for not killing my son. I want to thank him for not doing that,” she said.

Bradford Gille is expected back in court next week. He’s being held on a $1 million bond. His mom hopes he gets help.

“I would say, invest some good doctors in Brad. I would hope, I would pray that would happen for him, that he’d get the help he deserves in his life.”