A 26-year-old Whitefish man arrested Monday night for allegedly stabbing his father to death had long struggled with a serious mental health disorder and was living under the ward of his parents, according to court records dating back to 2015.
Tanner Lehnen Hosek faces a felony count of deliberate homicide related to the July 9 death of his father, 65-year-old Eric Kevin Hosek, a well-known financial advisor. The tragic incident occurred at the Hoseks’ home on Wilderness Lane just north of Whitefish, according to Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry.
Formal charges have not yet been filed in the matter and detectives are continuing to investigate the circumstances.
According to Curry, law enforcement was notified at 8:30 p.m. after a passerby witnessed a struggled between the two men and called 911.
Records from three years ago, submitted to the Flathead County District Court by a treating psychiatrist and a social worker, portray a man who struggled with severe psychiatric issues, but had learned to live with schizophrenia through the aid of consistent medication and a stable setting at home with his family.
However, the records note that Hosek was prone to “episodes where his judgment is impaired to the degree that he needs monitoring and supervision for his own safety and protection.”
That was the opinion of a treating psychiatrist who worked with Hosek following bouts of hospitalizations and acute inpatient psychiatric treatment, as well as some legal issues stemming from the psychosis. The psychiatrist’s report states, “a big part of these hospitalizations had to do with being noncompliant with medication as well as noncomitant substance abuse.”
“Tanner is a very intelligent young man and I do feel that he has a lot of potential to accomplish meaningful things in life,” the report states.
A separate report submitted by a social worker in the matter of guardianship around the same time explains that Hosek was a top student and athlete at Whitefish High School, where he graduated in 2010. After enrolling at the University of Montana, he began experiencing auditory hallucinations and was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia.
The report explains that Hosek found stability back in Whitefish after a months-long period of hospitalizations, arrests and returning from traveling abroad in Europe without a passport, following a hospitalization in a Dutch hospital where he was placed under involuntary commitment.
“Tanner remains stable at this time but if he decides to go off his medications, per history, he is not capable of making rational decisions on his behalf,” the report states. “Eric and Linda Hosek are the most appropriate people to take on this guardianship and will do what it takes to keep Tanner safe.”