A man spent almost three years locked in a psychiatric hospital in case of mistaken identity

Joshua Spriestersbach lived with schizophrenia, yet was a quiet, caring man who never hurt anyone. He spent time in jail on petty, non-violent charges, and on a few occasions, spent time at the Hawaii State Hospital, HSH. He often spoke about microwaves controlling him and told anyone who’d listen how the CIA was after him because of his computer hacking skills.

Joshua lived on the streets of Honolulu for more than a dozen years, alone without friends or family, although he wanted it that way. Joshua often used false identities to make it hard to track him down. This explains why he lost contact with his mother and sister around the same time his troubles began.

Arrested in a Case of Mistaken Identity

One beautiful day in March 2017, then 46-year-old Joshua stood in line waiting for food at the River of Life Mission in Honolulu. Joshua was a regular at the center, as were many of the island’s chronically homeless. As he stood in line, Joshua sat down on the sidewalk. That’s against the ordinance on Oahu. Joshua then fell asleep for a few seconds when he was awakened by officers tapping him on the shoulder. They placed Joshua in handcuffs and hauled him off to jail.

Joshua had given police and officials different aliases and false identities in the past, though usually when he was unmedicated and dealing with psychosis. One of those names was General Castleberry. He often used the name during his delusions. But arriving at the station only to learn he’d been brought now on a probation violation warrant on a man named Thomas Castleberry, he knew something was amiss. His mother named him Joshua and his date of birth and social security number could prove as much.

Despite Joshua’s insistence that he was not Thomas Castleberry, jailers did not believe him, nor did they check his fingerprints or mugshot photos, either of which could’ve proven who he was. At his first court appearance for Castleberry’s charges, Joshua was given a public defender to whom he immediately explained that the police had the wrong man. The public defender requested his client be given a three-panel doctor competency evaluation.

After four months in county jail, Joshua was transported to the Hawaii State Hospital. When staff asked his name and he replied Joshua, they did not believe him. Yet somehow, staff mixed Joshua’s chart together with Thomas Castleberry’s. They told Joshua he’d need drug classes since he had been charged with cocaine possession. Joshua insisted he had never used drugs in his life and had never been on probation. He again provided staff with his full name, date of birth, and social security number. They ignored the information and determined that Joshua was delusional. Days later, the three-panel board determined Joshua was “unfit to stand trial” and ordered him to be held at the facility.

Weeks Turn Into Months

Weeks passed and soon so did the months. Joshua grew more hopeless by the day. Staff at the facility insisted he was Thomas Castleberry while he insisted he was not. He was ordered to take antipsychotic medications and was injected with them by early 2018 when he began to refuse them. Staff determined Joshua, aka Thomas Castleberry, to be “potentially dangerous” and continued to declare him “unfit to stand trial.” He remained at the facility.

Meanwhile, the real Thomas Castleberry had no idea ‘he’ was locked up at Hawaii State Hospital. Being in two secure places at the same time is something only a magician can do and he definitely wasn't. Castleberry had left Hawaii years before and currently was serving a six-year prison term thousands of miles away in Alaska.

Doctors twice more determined Joshua to be “unfit to stand trial” since he continued to insist he was not Thomas Castleberry. The more he denied the name, the more staff thought he was delusional and mentally disturbed. They continued to pump Thomas with anti-psychotics and other medications until he was near his breaking point.

Something is Off

By 2019, Joshua drooled at the mouth, could barely speak, and always felt out of his mind. He did open up to Dr. Garret during their sessions, discussing his past and how he’d been in a mental facility in California before his move with his sister to Hawaii a dozen years before.

Dr. Garret listened to Joshua and felt something was off about the situation. She investigated the matter and looked up mugshots of Joshua and Thomas. Dr. Garrett knew Joshua was in a CA facility at the time Thomas’s mugshot was taken. She could not believe what she saw: Thomas Castleberry was not the man sitting in front of her or the man the state had incarcerated two years earlier.

Dr. Garrett requested fingerprints and other identifying information and learned on Jan. 15, 2020, that the man at HSH was Josha Sprierbach, the name he’d given them all along. He was immediately released from the facility.

Joshua Goes Home

Joshua spent the next two months as he had done for the past dozen years: on the streets of Oahu begging for money and eating at homeless shelters. Then, one day in late March, he picked up the phone and called his mom. It was a call she’d waited for so long. Joshua’s mother and sister agreed to house him and so, he relocated to Albany, New York. Those almost three years at HSH opened his eyes. He missed his family; he needed them more than ever.

After explaining to his sister how he wound up inside a mental hospital for two and one-half years, Joshua began to work on rebuilding their relationship and himself. Joshua’s sister connected him with a mental health provider in Vermont.

With help from the Hawaii Innocence Project and his sister, Joshua filed a lawsuit against the Police Department, the public defender’s officer, and the Hawaii State Hospital, any of whom could’ve checked Joshua’s fingerprints or mugshots but failed to do so. The lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice.