‘It’s mom’: Her plea stopped the attack. Now she fights for mental health care, not prison
Looking up from the bathroom floor of her Stoughton home, she could see the change in her son's eyes. He towered over her with a knife while blood poured from her wrist, dripping through her fingers as she fought to stay alive. Feet away, her husband sat with multiple stab wounds to his back and torso.
The woman looked up at the boy she raised — now looming over her like a stranger — and pleaded with him, "Paul, it's mom."
"And his eyes came back. It was him again. His love," Kathy Gaito said during an interview with MassLive. "It was my son."
Now, Gaito is fighting to keep her son, Paul O'Brien, from being locked away and to finally secure the help she says he's been desperately needing for years.
O'Brien faces seven felony charges — including armed assault to murder — in connection with the stabbing of his parents on Jan. 12, 2025 — O'Brien's 29th birthday,
Gaito's husband and O'Brien's stepfather, who had health problems prior to the stabbing, died a few months after the incident. And due to the charges the district attorney brought against her son involving her, Gaito is unable to visit him.
She said she spends most days crying. Still, she has continued attending all of his court hearings for nearly a year, fighting for what she thinks is best for her child — something she believes her husband would've wanted, too.
"It's killing me. It is killing me. My husband loved him ... He didn't want any of this to happen," Gaito said. "I can't visit him. I beg the prosecutor, please just drop my charges ... She won't do it. And she knows how badly I just want to see him and talk to him. Nothing. I get nothing."
The Norfolk District Attorney's office declined to comment.
Paul O'Brien is facing multiple charges after officials say he stabbed his mother and stepfather. But his mother is fighting to get him help.Kathy Gaito
What happened on Jan. 12, 2025
The 911 call came from O'Brien.
He informed the dispatcher at 8 p.m. on Jan. 12, 2025 that he had stabbed his mother at their apartment, according to court documents. He said he had stabbed her "everywhere" and that she was going to die.
O'Brien was standing outside with blood on his hands and a backpack when police arrived.
"Please don't kill me," he told police.
When first responders went inside, they found Gaito in a pool of her own blood. The knife, which O'Brien had dropped after his mother's pleas, was next to her, court documents state.
Michael Gaito was airlifted to Boston Medical Center. He had been stabbed 12 times and lost about 1 liter of blood. Kathy Gaito was taken to Boston Medical Center via ambulance due to a long wait for a second medical helicopter. She had been stabbed 10 times, was unable to feel her hands and had no radial pulse, which can indicate life-threatening conditions.
O'Brien admitted to the stabbing to police that night, court documents state. He stated he thought he saw his mother with a knife, so he began stabbing her with his own knife. He also told officers he heard voices from the apartments above him commenting on things he was doing, a police report states.
To Kathy Gaito, that explanation only confirms what she's feared for years — that her son was lost in a world his mind created, one she believes is shaped by untreated schizophrenia.
Paul O'Brien is facing multiple charges after officials say he stabbed his mother and stepfather. But his mother is fighting to get him help.Kathy Gaito
Longstanding struggles with mental health
O'Brien has tried to hide his mental health struggles for years, his mother said. A police report details how another family member described O'Brien as smart and seemed to be able to "just turn it off and act completely normal at times."
But it was always there. And, Kathy Gaito said, her son never mentally developed beyond being a teenager.
His mother remembers a time when she heard him talking in his room while he was alone. When she asked him about it, he said he was talking on the phone.
"He didn't even have a phone," Kathy Gaito said. "I was like, 'Oh, no, it's getting worse and worse.' Every year got worse."
Various police reports detail Kathy Gaito and other family members attempting to get O'Brien help for years. Kathy Gaito said one of the times her son was in the hospital, he was assaulted, which added to his fears.
"He was scared," she said.
When Kathy Gaito and her son lived in Hyannis, police were well aware of his mental health struggles. The police department was able to use a Community Impact Unit (CIU) that included a licensed clinical social worker to address mental health.
But Kathy Gaito said it wasn't the same when she moved to Stoughton.
In October 2024, Kathy Gaito got guardianship over 28-year-old O'Brien. He was upset when he found out, according to a police report. He wanted to leave.
Stoughton police, however, informed Kathy Gaito that despite the guardianship, they couldn't force O'Brien to stay with her. Instead, she would have to go back to court to attempt to section her son, which would involuntarily commit him for his mental health.
Police then attempted to help O'Brien find housing at Father Bill's but there was none available. Police dropped O'Brien off so he could take a bus to Brockton.
Kathy Gaito had given police $30 to give to her son so he could get food.
A few weeks later, Kathy Gaito reported her son missing after not hearing from him and being unable to find him to give him new clothes.
The woman told police her son did not officially live with her but often came by her apartment to visit and for money. She informed police about his mental health.
On Nov. 3, 2024, police were unable to find O'Brien at any of the local homeless shelters. Police finally verified O'Brien had returned to his mother's home on Dec. 12, 2024.
Paul O'Brien is facing multiple charges after officials say he stabbed his mother and stepfather. But his mother is fighting to get him help.Kathy Gaito
Waiting for trial
The voices haven't stopped while waiting for his trial.
The mother and son talk on the phone sometimes, and during those calls he told her, "he thinks everyone is trying to kill him," including other incarcerated individuals and guards, she said.
Kathy Gaito said it took her months of fighting to get her son into Bridgewater State Hospital , a medium-security facility housing men with serious psychiatric needs.
O'Brien was arraigned in Norfolk County Superior Court on May 7, 2025 and has been held at Norfolk County Correctional Center since his dangerousness hearing. A competency hearing was not asked for until Nov. 12, 2025.
In November and December, O'Brien spent time at Bridgewater State Hospital to be evaluated. In January, another hearing presented the findings. As of Tuesday, the matter has been taken under advisement but no decision has been made.
Another hearing has been scheduled for March 12.
In the meantime, Kathy Gaito says her son is being held in protective custody and rarely leaves his cell. He calls her when he can. On his birthday — the same day she was stabbed a year earlier — she sent him a card. She wanted to send a gift, she said, but the rules wouldn't allow it.
She fears it'll get worse if he's convicted and sent to prison.
"I'm scared for him. I'm scared he's gonna hurt himself," she said.
Prisons can be one of the most challenging environments to effectively administer mental health care. And the risks for suicide and self-harm are significant among the population. Currently, the Massachusetts Department of Correction is contracting with a forensic mental health expert, Dr. Sharen Barboza, for an independent review after six confirmed and apparent suicides occurred in 2025. It's the most suicides the DOC has seen in recent years.
Kathy Gaito said as his mother, she can tell O'Brien's mental health is getting worse as he spends time inside Norfolk County Correctional Center. Although she isn't allowed to visit, she can tell by his expressions and body language in court.
"I've never seen him like this," she said.
Bridgewater State Hospital in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, is a psychiatric state hospital for men accused or convicted of crimes. It houses 250 to 280 men.Wikimedia Commons / First-Nighthawk
'The proper form of accountability'
When violence occurs within families who still love and want to protect one another, it can be one of the most difficult situations for prosecutors to navigate, former Middlesex County District Attorney Gerry Leone said. These cases often push the legal system into territory where accountability doesn't always align with a lengthy prison sentence.
"It's extremely sensitive and you do have to go into these type of matters knowing that you've got to balance and have a measured approach to addressing the issues," Leone said.
He noted that mental health and addiction concerns make those decisions even more complex. Massachusetts courts, he said, have been good at understanding how conditions such as schizophrenia can shape a person's actions, and determining criminal responsibility often falls along "a spectrum."
At the same time, Leone said prosecutors must weigh those realities against the need to protect the public — especially when the victims themselves are asking the system to help the person who harmed them.
"It's looking for what's the proper form of accountability here," he said. "The human element is critical in these matters," he added, noting that it is very rarely "just absolutely black and white."
Families, he said, often carry their own burdens in the aftermath. Reflecting on his 25 years as a prosecutor, Leone said guilt can weigh heavily on parents.
"Am I part of a trigger? Either how I parented or didn't, or what I did along the way that caused any of this and might have been coupled with something else that caused the ultimate trigger," he said.
He said he has seen mothers, in particular, shoulder much of that weight "because that person you gave birth to has now done something awful to someone else that you love in your family unit."
And beyond guilt, he said, there is the simple reality of loss — the loss of a loved one to the criminal justice system. In those moments, some families, he added, find answers or meaning by looking to mental health as an explanation. For many, it's also a way to hold on to hope that the person they love might finally get the treatment they've often spent years trying to secure.
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