It took four-and-half years to bring Jared Shaw, now 36, to trial in the murder of Christine McCaleb. On Feb. 13, A jury rejected the defense’s arguments for not guilty by reason of insanity and sentenced him to life in prison. 

At around 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 16, 2019, Shaw fatally stabbed McCaleb, 67, while she was sleeping on a park bench outside the Bank of America building in DeLand. He then cut his own throat and paced blocks of Woodland Boulevard, leaving an extensive blood trail and crime scene from Flagler Hall on the Stetson University campus to the 7-Eleven convenience store. Police were flagged down by a passerby; when they stopped, they saw Shaw, whose blood was dripping from his neck and soaking his shirt.

“I stabbed someone,” Shaw told the police.

Shaw and McCaleb were both homeless and living on the streets because, in part, of their previously diagnosed schizophrenia. Despite loving and supportive families, without the help of long-term case workers, neither was able to maintain stability for long enough to hold down a job, rent an apartment or consistently access and take medication. 

A deep dive by The Beacon after the murder found that both McCaleb and Shaw had fallen into a gap in our mental health care system — they were considered too stable to be committed and too unstable to lead regular lives. They lived in a place where mental health services sometimes cannot reach: a place outside regular society, where there are no easy answers.

McCaleb died there. And now, Shaw will spend the rest of his life in prison.

In some ways, their families said, they’re both finally free. 

“He never had a chance”

Shaw has a lifetime of mental health problems related to fetal alcohol syndrome, cerebral palsy, schizophrenia, mood disorders; his estimated IQ is 61. 

Adopted at birth by Bonnie and David Shaw, Shaw was introduced to a large, loving and tight-knit family — 12 siblings in total. His mother drank through her entire pregnancy, and by the age of 5 it was clear he was low-functioning. To this day, he can’t read, his family said, and can barely write his name.

But although the deck was stacked against him, his parents had hope.

“He was so sweet and respectful,” his sister, Megan Shaw said. “Dad used to joke he was clothing all the homeless in DeLand because Jared would give away all the clothes he bought him.” 

When Jared Shaw became an adult, his family found him on the streets during storms, fed and cleaned him up, drove him to doctor appointments, and ensured he had money and a cellphone. But he was an adult, and some decisions were his alone. Once they dropped him off at a group home, the family said, only for him to show up hours later. The home wouldn’t allow him to go outside to have a cigarette, they said, so he left. 

“They don’t fit the criteria for complete control, and when they are on meds everyone thinks they are fine. And then it goes away, and people fall through the cracks,” another sister, Lauren Shaw, said. “Just the sheer amount we had to do to keep him medicated and stable.” 

“And it still wasn’t enough,” Megan added.

Before the murder, Shaw had been arrested for running naked through a local CVS. When he was released without his family being notified and after the buses stopped running, his backpack with his medications was not returned to him, his family said.

Shaw walked from the jail to DeLand to the local Walmart, where he bought a cellphone, cigarettes, a lighter, and a knife. Less than 36 hours later, McCaleb was dead.

“If he was in his normal state and she was there without a blanket, he would have covered her up,” Bonnie Shaw said. “I think he had a psychotic break.” 

A beautiful heart

Christine McCaleb was one of the lucky few who could treat her schizophrenia with medication, her daughter, Michelle Arel, said. But when the bottom fell out on the economy in 2007, her mother lost her longtime case worker. Eventually she lost her job, and then her apartment. By 2011, Christine McCaleb was living full time on the streets.

“She had a beautiful heart,” Arel said of her mother. 

Like Shaw, McCaleb faced a similar problem: Without her rights being taken away, or a full-time caseworker and appropriate medications, it’s up to the adult to make appointments, find transportation, pay for medication, and remember to take the medication.

Since Christine’s death, her daughter has started a nonprofit, Christine’s Blankets, dedicated to delivering blankets and other sundries to the homeless. Her altruism was based on the initial reports that Shaw believed she stole his blanket. 

“I didn’t hate him, or them. I understand what they are going through, on a different level,” Arel told The Beacon later. “She’s free — we’re both finally free.” 

“Homeless person killed”

To be the family of someone who is mentally ill and homeless is to wonder when they will get the call.

“We read that headline, and all of the families with homeless family members are going, is this it?” Lauren Shaw said.

“We were always waiting for the call,” Bonnie Shaw said. 

At first, the family assumed Jared had been the one killed. It wasn’t until they saw his mugshot on television news that they realized he had been involved. 

 “We still thought he was the victim; it never occurred to us he could be the murderer,” Lauren Shaw said. 

A question of competency

After he was arrested, the court-appointed mental health expert assessed Jared Shaw to be incompetent to stand trial. He was institutionalized and, for the first time, put on the correct medications. He was returned to the Volusia County Branch Jail with strict instructions from the facility that his stability was dependent on his continued use of the medications. The expert, Lisa Potash, assessed Shaw again, finding that he was competent enough to stand trial.

“The worst thing is that for the first two-and-half years he was in jail, he was so happy,” his adoptive mother, Bonnie Shaw, told The Beacon. “Then they took him off his meds.”

For unknown reasons, the jail discontinued his antipsychotic medication in January 2022.

For the past year-and-half, he has appeared increasingly disheveled at court appearances and silently talks to himself. 

“He’s delusional,” Bonnie Shaw said. 

At jail visits, he would reference people he hadn’t seen in 30 years, she said. He told his family he adopted a child, and had saved $10,000 for an apartment when he got out.

The defense attempted a last-minute try to reassess his competency, using the same expert, Potash, who hadn’t seen Jared in over a year when she assessed him in early January 2024.

“He was bizarre,” Potash said, “He had decompensated significantly.”

Potash told the court that Shaw said he was going to be sainted, that he was conversing with the Archangel Michael, and that voices told him not to trust her.

Another expert, however, who assessed him late Feb. 8, judged him to be compliant with the measures of competency under Florida law. In layman’s terms, they are: knows the charges and penalties, knows the prosecutors are against you and the defense is for you, and can tell the counsel facts about the case, act appropriately in court and testify relevantly.

The judge found him competent, and the next day the jury was selected. 

After a two-day trial, where the defense’s only witness was Potash (Shaw did not testify), the jury deliberated for only an hour-and-a-half. Shaw was found guilty of first-degree murder with only one possible sentence: life in prison.

Relief, and guilt

There’s finally some closure for the families, and some measure of comfort knowing that McCaleb and Shaw are no longer suffering.

“From a mom’s heart, when your son is in prison, you can go to sleep at night because you know where he is,” Bonnie Shaw said. “He would call in the middle of the night, it’s pouring rain, crying and begging for help for us to come and get him — and we did, many times — that’s so much harder.”

“There is such a relief, a relief and a guilt. You remember the toddler, the kid, and he’s still that person,” Megan Shaw said. “I’m happy my brother is in jail, and I feel guilty for being relieved.”

“I feel like this is the beginning of the rest of our lives. That’s bad to say. But we have hope again. He’ll be safe,” Bonnie Shaw said.

For the Shaws, there is relief that he won’t return to an endless cycle of incarceration or institutionalization, where he is eventually released and can once again fall through the cracks, despite all their efforts. 

Arel had similar feelings about the verdict. Was life in prison the best outcome?

“Yes and no,” Arel told The Beacon. “Yes, because I don’t want him to ever get out and get off his meds and hurt someone again. And no, because I want him to get the care that he needs, and I don’t know if he will in state prison.”

A message

Both Arel and the Shaws urged compassion for the homeless, and deep empathy for families of those who are homeless.

“We’ve been the family to someone who is homeless for years, and this is life, this isn’t curable. There are no permanent solutions, no magic bullets,” Lauren Shaw said. “People don’t understand. Loving someone that is viewed as the scourge of the Earth — they’re people, they’re brothers and sisters, and family.”

Arel also had a message about the homeless, with whom she has worked closely through her nonprofit.

“It could happen to you. It could happen to anyone,” Arel said. “There’s so many kinds of people out there — it’s not just drug addicts, or the mentally ill. Because costs are going up, and health care is going down, there are seniors that can’t afford their apartments, there are children. So many more kids than before.”

“If you’re going to judge, do it with a heart,” Arel added.

Forgiveness

Now that the trial is done, the Shaws intend to get involved with Christine’s Blankets, which is also Arel’s wish.  

For the more than four years since her mother’s murder, Arel wanted to reach out to the Shaw family, she said. After the verdict was read and the sentence was passed down by the judge, she approached them outside of the courtroom.

“I wanted you to know that I forgive him,” Arel told Megan and Lauren Shaw. “I forgave him a long time ago.”

Arel asked if she could hug the sisters, and they said yes. 

“I’ve wanted to do this for four years,” she said as they embraced. “They were so alike.”