Relatives of the man accused of violently attacking a woman in the California mansion of Beanie Babies billionaire Ty Warner said Wednesday that in the days before the assault, they repeatedly tried to warn authorities that he might hurt someone.
In a statement to NBC News, Russell Phay’s family said that beginning on May 19 — two days before the alleged assault that left Linda Malek-Aslanian in a coma — his siblings repeatedly called the state agency in Colorado that oversees parolees and tried to sound the alarm. “We left multiple messages over the course of the week expressing our fear that Russell was spiraling and could harm someone,” the family said in the statement, referring to the Colorado Department of Corrections.
For many years, they said, Phay has experienced severe schizophrenia, a condition that they said transformed him from a kind, loving child into a person who is unstable, at times violent and no longer recognizable.
“Many of us have had to distance ourselves from Russell for our own safety, though it has never been easy to do so,” the family said. “Even with our estrangement, we tried to take action when we saw warning signs that he was in crisis.”
Weeks before the California attack, the family began getting worrisome phone calls from Phay. He made little sense, a sibling said in an interview, and he provided no details about where he was.
He made no specific threats, but the calls prompted the family to reach out to authorities, said the sibling, who asked not to be identified because they didn’t want to be publicly associated with Phay.
They said that they never heard back from the Corrections Department and that they learned of Phay’s arrest only when he called a family member from jail on Sunday, four days after the attack at Warner’s home, the family said.
Alondra Gonzalez, director of communications for the Colorado Department of Corrections, said Thursday that Phay, 42, was discharged from parole in July and that her agency has not had authority over him since then.
The sibling, however, said the family was repeatedly told by representatives from a department call center that Phay was in its system and that messages would be relayed to his parole officer.
Gonzalez said that center is operated by a contractor and she was unaware of what was said to the family or if their messages had reached the officer.
Had the family been told that Phay was no longer under state supervision, the sibling said, they would have focused their attention elsewhere and tried to track him down.
“This tragedy might have been preventable, and we are devastated that our efforts to sound the alarm went unanswered,” the family said.
Phay has a criminal history that spans multiple states and includes guilty pleas to assault, stalking and menacing, court documents and public records show. Gonzalez was unaware of what crimes landed Phay in prison prior to his supervised release last year, but public records show that one of his most recent criminal cases in that state appears to have been in December 2020, when he was accused of assaulting someone with a baseball bat, a complaint shows.
He pleaded guilty to felony menacing in June 2021 and was sentenced the following month to two years in prison, with 218 days suspended, court records show. He was ordered to remain on parole for two years after the completion of that term, according to the records.
The family member said relatives weren’t sure where Phay was when they first reached out to authorities. In an effort to find him and alert authorities to his location, the family first called officials in Texas and Nevada, where, the sibling said, Phay had prior criminal cases. But they were told he wasn’t on probation or parole in those states, the sibling said.
After being told that he was on parole in Colorado, the family focused on trying to alert the person the representatives identified as Phay’s parole officer, the sibling said.
Authorities haven’t said why they believe Phay broke into Warner’s home in Montecito, the wealthy enclave just outside Santa Barbara, and assaulted Malek-Aslanian. Afterward, Phay barricaded himself inside the house and tried to flee by leaping from a second-story bathroom, the sheriff’s office said.
Phay was arrested and charged with attempted murder, burglary, kidnapping, assault and other crimes. His attorney declined to comment.
Representatives for Warner haven’t responded to requests for comment, nor have relatives of Malek-Aslanian.
In the statement, Phay’s family said they are “heartbroken by the horrific incident involving our brother, Russell M. Phay, and the innocent woman who was so grievously harmed. Our hearts are with her, her family, and everyone affected by this senseless act of violence. We are deeply saddened by the pain and trauma caused.”
The relatives added they are grieving not only for the victim and her loved ones, “but also for the brother we once knew — and the system that continues to fail so many families like ours.”
