For nine months in 2002-2003, a private homecare firm was paid $4,900 a month to spend eight hours a day with Adam Mau-Goffredo, who had sequestered himself inside the Kahala home of his mother and sisters after chasing them out, according to the firm's president.

It took several weeks to get Mau-Goffredo to let company employees into the house, but when they gained access, they found a troubled young man who was dabbling in devil worship and listening to Satanic music, said Sharon Fountain, president of Physically Disabled Mentally Ill Care. The company provides daily homecare for people with physical and mental disabilities.

In addition to his fascination with "dark spirits," Mau-Goffredo was obsessed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, agencies he believed were conspiring to kill him, said Fountain, who also is the board president of the Hawai'i chapter of the National Alliance for Mental Illness.

The company eventually established a rapport with Mau-Goffredo, got him to come out of his shell and to start taking anti-psychotic medication prescribed by his doctor, Fountain said. He was eating healthy foods and exercising, she said.

"He was a good kid. The Adam that I see on TV is not the Adam we worked with at the time," Fountain said. "When we got Adam, he was pretty sick. It took him a long time to get him out of the house and engage. He would lock himself in that house and he did what he did. There was a dark side to Adam."

Mau-Goffredo was indicted in the slayings of three people at a Tantalus lookout and a home invasion robbery the night of July 6. He is scheduled to be arraigned on 18 felony charges on Wednesday.

Fountain did not directly work with Mau-Goffredo while he was under the company's care from late December 2002 until August 2003, but as the firm's president, she reviewed the case file on Mau-Goffredo and visited the home, she said.

Howard Luke, the attorney representing Mau-Goffredo's mother, Lynnette L.L. Mau, said he made Lynnette Mau aware of the information provided to The Advertiser by Fountain. Mau would not comment, Luke said Wednesday.

Mau-Goffredo's attorney, Brook Hart, said he was aware that his client was cared for by PDMI Care in 2003 but did not know details about Mau-Goffredo's behavior during that time.

"I know that there is some history and it certainly seems to be something that will be relevant to the case," Hart said Tuesday.

Fountain said at the end of nine months, Mau-Goffredo's mother told the company that the family no longer needed its services because her son "was doing fine."

This period in Mau-Goffredo's life occurred seven months after his mother requested a temporary restraining order against him, saying in court papers that he assaulted her and threatened her and his three sisters. The TRO was applied for and awarded in May 2002 and expired in August 2002. It was not served on Mau-Goffredo because the mother did not sign the papers.

Mau-Goffredo began seeing a psychiatrist in November 2003 and was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, according to court records.

After hearing testimony from the doctor, part-time Honolulu Family Court Judge Darryl Choy last month found Mau-Goffredo to be "incapacitated" and approved placing him under the co-guardianship of his mother and caretaker William Roy Carroll Jr.

INSANITY DEFENSE

Hart said he's still gathering information and it's premature to say whether he will raise the insanity defense. But in view of Mau-Goffredo's troubled mental-health history, his mental condition is likely to play a key role in his criminal case.

If the insanity issue is raised, a state judge would appoint three mental-health experts to examine Mau-Goffredo to determine if he was capable of telling right from wrong and controlling his conduct to conform with the law.

Yesterday, city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle would not comment on the information divulged by PDMI.

"I'll repeat what I said in court if I said it in court, but I'm hesitant to make any other comments due to the rules of professional responsibility."

Fountain also shed light on the relationship between Mau-Goffredo and Carroll, saying Carroll worked for PDMI and was the company employee assigned to care for Mau-Goffredo.

When the contract with PDMI and Mau-Goffredo's mother ended in August 2003, Carroll left the company and hired on with Lynnette Mau to provide full-time care to her son, Fountain said. Carroll did do part-time contract work for PDMI Care until April 2004.

Carroll, who worked at the Hawai'i Youth Correctional Facility, worked with PDMI Care for a year and a half, Fountain said.

Carroll's lawyer, Keith Kiuchi, yesterday would not comment for this story.

Fountain said company employees ensure that clients are supervised for at least eight hours every day, remain physically and mentally active, eat healthy, keep clear of drugs, and avoid negative behavior that might exacerbate their condition. The company does not prescribe drugs, provide counseling or diagnose conditions.

When asked why she was divulging information about her client, Fountain said she is concerned the public will form an uninformed impression of the mentally ill and those suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

LEADING STABLE LIVES

With attention, medication, and intellectual engagement, people with paranoid schizophrenia can lead stable lives, she said.

"If they are on medication and if someone is right there helping him, they don't just wake up one morning and go berserk," she said.

According to Fountain, Mau-Goffredo reached a point near the end of PDMI's contract with Lynnette Mau where he was behaving like a stable young man.

He exercised regularly, ate healthy and was working on ways to get into college, she said.

"Adam was a quiet guy but he was attractive and he was in real good physical condition," she said.

PDMI Care is licensed "to assist individuals who have a severe and persistent mental illness and/or physical disability live independently to the maximum extent possible," according to the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. PDMI Care has a certificate of good standing with the state.

In 2004, the state terminated a contract with PDMI Care because it decided the company was performing services without the proper license. At the time, PDMI Care was cooking meals for clients, which required them to have a license, according to the state and Fountain.

The company shut down for three months, stopped cooking meals for clients, and was allowed to continue doing business, Fountain said.

Advertiser staff writer Ken Kobayashi contributed to this report.

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.