Torres, 76, says her son came to her Kalihi apartment with a knife wrapped in a towel. She says that as she sat on the sofa, he grabbed her shirt, the two struggled and then her son fled.

It wasn't until she got a drink of water in the kitchen and looked down that she saw her bloody clothes and realized she had been stabbed.

"I felt the sting," she recalls.

Torres was taken to The Queen's Medical Center in critical condition. Her family says an artery had been pierced, and she underwent surgery before she was discharged about a week later.

Her son, Rueben A. Ortiz, 48, who has a history of mental illness and who was receiving mental-health services from the state, was arrested about six minutes after the stabbing about a half mile away. He is being held in lieu of $100,000 bail, awaiting trial on a charge of attempted murder.

The stabbing was one of three cases highlighted by federal Magistrate Kevin Chang in a scathing report last week that said the state and the Department of Health have fallen "far behind" in implementing a plan by June 30 to provide services to Hawai'i's estimated 9,000 seriously mentally ill residents.

To underscore his concern, Chang cited the three cases and a report that 16 of the mentally ill receiving state services died within a two-month period this year, including six who committed suicide. He did not disclose names, but Torres' relatives called The Advertiser and identified her as the victim in the stabbing.

Torres and her daughter Nellie Ortiz, 49, said Rueben Ortiz never should have been released from the Hawai'i State Hospital, and once in the community, he should have been monitored better.

"They don't care," Torres said.

"We knew one day he would explode, but nobody did nothing about it," Nellie Ortiz said.

Another person to contact The Advertiser was the sister of a woman who died in an apparent suicide. The woman's case, like that of Ortiz, was cited by Chang.

In the apparent suicide, Chang said, a 42-year-old woman called a treatment facility's hot line to report she had taken an overdose of medication. Case workers sent two emergency medical technician teams to find the woman, but she was found dead in her apartment the next day, March 2.

Chang said in both cases, the chances of avoiding the "unfortunate" incidents could have been increased if the community plan had been more developed.

"He's right 120 percent," said Evamae Nutt of Makaha, sister of the 42-year-old woman.

The Department of Health and the attorney general's office plan to file a response to Chang's report, but health officials say they cannot comment on the stabbing and apparent-suicide cases.

"It's our understanding that the confidentiality laws that govern the Department of Health and (the department's) adult mental health division do not allow us to comment or respond in these circumstances," department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said.

Rueben Ortiz, referred to as John Doe in Chang's report, was a patient at Hawai'i State Hospital who was placed on temporary release under conditions. Among them: "You are prohibited from face-to-face contact with any family member without prior permission of your probation officer."

Chang said John Doe had a history of violent behavior with family members, but his case manager was "apparently unaware of the prohibition against contact between John Doe and his family members and of the past violence between John Doe and his family members."

Keeping track of patients released from the state hospital is not enough, the magistrate said. Critical information, such as the prohibition barring John Doe from contacting his family, must be shared between the hospital and community treatment teams, he said.

Nutt said her sister, who had a long history of mental illness, had been discharged from The Queen's Medical Center about two weeks before her death and was living by herself. Nutt said her sister told her there were no resources left to place her in a group home, and she had to live on her own or be homeless.

"She cannot live by herself," Nutt said. "She has to live in a care facility, to be around people."

Nutt said the family wants answers.

"We're still upset about the whole situation," Nutt said.

Torres said she feels fortunate to survive the stabbing, but wants to move from her one-bedroom apartment on the first floor of a two-story building in the Kuhio Park Terrace complex.

"Too much memories," she says.

Torres and her daughter say Rueben Ortiz has a history of violence and mental problems, dating back to when he was a teenager.

Torres, who still feels pain when she lifts her right arm, says Rueben Ortiz is one of her 10 children, but her brother raised him since he was about 2.

His history includes abusing the late Lawrence Sadino, the uncle who raised him, according to Torres and her daughter. Rueben Ortiz pleaded guilty to abuse of a household member in 1997 and was sentenced to two days in jail, according to court records.

"We were always afraid of (Rueben)," Nellie Ortiz says.

Torres and her daughter say the case worker knew Ortiz had been staying at his mother's Kalihi apartment after his release from the hospital. The worker accompanied Rueben Ortiz when he picked up his belongings and went to a care home about a month before the stabbing, the women said.

"She (the case worker) knew he was here," Torres says. "She called me (to tell her she was going to pick up his clothes)."

One irony is that Torres saw her son at the courthouse the day before the stabbing. The son had filed a request for a restraining order to keep his mother away from him, alleging that she threatened him and showed him a knife. The mother denied the allegations.

On April 12, a state judge ruled there was no finding that the mother abused her son, but wrote in a court order that Torres agreed to the restraining order — to stay away from her son.

Rueben Ortiz showed up at the apartment unannounced the next night and didn't say anything before the stabbing, Torres says.

"He's sick. He has two personalities," Torres says. "That's the problem with him."

She said she understands from another relative that her son felt she didn't love him. "I love all my children," Torres says.

"She almost died in the hospital," Nellie Ortiz said about the mother. "They told us she was not going to make it. You know what we went through, the kind of trauma we went through?"

The mother and daughter both hope Rueben Ortiz is never released again.

"I cannot trust him," the mother said. "I feel very safe that he's locked up."

Rueben Ortiz's lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Ed Harada, said he will ask the court to appoint three mental-health experts to determine if his client could know right from wrong and could control his conduct according to the law, the legal test for insanity.

"There's every reason to believe his actions were governed by his underlying mental illness," Harada said.

If convicted of attempted murder, Rueben Ortiz would face a mandatory life term with parole.

If acquitted by reason of mental disorder, he would most likely be considered dangerous and committed to the state hospital. He would remain there until a court determines he no longer poses a threat to others or no longer suffers from the mental illness.