Mentally ill woman on Tarrant County’s most wanted list

Authorities appealed for help Monday finding a Mansfield woman who left a residential treatment in 2014, about six years after she was found not guilty by reason of insanity of drowning her toddler son.

Valeria Maxon, 41, spend a few years in state mental hospital and then was released to community outpatient treatment. She left a residential treatment facility in far south Fort Worth a few weeks after arriving in August 2014. A warrant for her arrest was issued in October 2014.

Maxon was placed on Tarrant County’s most wanted list a few days ago.

“Because of the length of time she has been missing, we’re actively trying to get new leads on her,” Terry Grisham, a spokesman for the Tarrant County sheriff, said Monday. “Her last known contacts, addresses and locations have been checked out, and there are no leads.”

Tarrant County criminal court records from 2014 said Maxon has a severe, persistent mental illness, and that if not treated, she would continue to have severe, abnormal mental, emotional or physical distress.

Maxon drowned her year-old son, Alex, on June 30, 2006, at their Mansfield home because she believed that he was the antichrist, according to court testimony. She was charged with capital murder, but a jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity.

She was admitted to North Texas State Hospital-Vernon and later to the Kerrville State Hospital, records show. A judge approved an outpatient treatment plan for Maxon in 2013 and 2014 in Fort Worth, according to court records.

She first was treated at God’s Reachout, 7801 Marlborough Drive. In an August 2014 order, she was told to reside at Big Heart, 333 W. Hallmark Drive, in Fort Worth. The order would have expired July 30, 2015, but it was subject to renewal. She left a few weeks later, and a warrant was issued in October 2014.

In 2010, her husband, Michael Maxon, was indicted on a charge of abandonment because despite warnings from mental-health professionals not to leave his wife alone with their son, he did so for about an hour and a half, according to testimony.

He was convicted, and at the time was believed to be the first Texas husband held criminally responsible for the actions of his mentally ill wife. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and served five months in jail, but in September 2014 was placed on probation for 10 years.

Michael Maxon could not be reached Monday to comment.

Affidavit details day of boy’s death

An arrest warrant affidavit for Michael Maxon outlined Valeria Maxon’s mental illness and what happened the day the boy died. Here are details from the affidavit:

March and April 2006 — In March, doctors said 9-month-old Alex was underdeveloped. Valeria Maxon began having panic attacks every few hours, her husband wrote in notes that were later collected by police. Their lives became “unmanageable,” and he had to leave his job at an Arlington-based magazine.

June 2006 — Michael Maxon wanted his wife to attend the Biocybernaut Institute in California, which advertises a focus on a connection between spiritual development and brain waves.

She attended one day of treatment and then refused to return, according to the affidavit. Michael Maxon took Valeria’s place at the institute. While he was there June 6, 2006, she tried to commit suicide by overdosing on prescription medications.

California medical records stated that Michael Maxon was advised not to leave his wife alone with the baby until she had been hospitalized and stabilized. He told the medical staff that she would be under continuous supervision by him or her sister.

When they returned to Texas, Valeria went back to a Dallas psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed with “bipolar disorder, most recent episode depressed with psychotic features.”

She was discharged June 16, 2006, with a warning that she not be left alone for several days.

June 30, 2006 — Michael Maxon told police he left the house to run errands and was gone about 1  1/2 hours.

When he returned, his wife told him she allowed Alex to drown in the hot tub and that he had been dead about an hour. He found the boy on the couple’s bed, cold and not breathing. He called her family in Eastern Europe, and she talked with them for about 10 minutes.

He put away groceries and clothes he had picked up from the cleaners. He put the cover back on the hot tub and called a business partner to explain what happened, then called 911.

This report contains information from Star-Telegram archives.

This story was originally published February 1, 2016 at 12:36 PM with the headline "Mentally ill woman on Tarrant County’s most wanted list."