In his mind, his life was in grave danger.

He feared his neighbor had been poisoning him for months. His brain told him his family had been doing the same.

His neighbor was a friendly man, always saying hello and stopping for a quick chat. But, in his darkest thoughts, he knew the man in apartment 340 was Satan.

He warned the man to leave his food alone. The man didn't listen. That was it.

"It's either him or me," he said. "It ain't going to be me."

"Boo Boo" Thompson is leaning forward in a plastic chair, staring with the demeanor of a curious child. He caresses his freshly shaven head. His voice doesn’t match his 6-foot-6-inch, 270-pound frame and he stutters when he's nervous.

“I have made a lot of progress in here,” the former Michigan State football star said. “I wanted to kill myself and others before I got here.”

He's in a conference room inside Elgin Mental Health Center in the west suburbs of Chicago, a place made of white cinder blocks and steel doors, surrounded by 10-foot chain-link fences

He killed a man. That's what landed him here. His mind turned on him, causing torturous delusions. On March 30, 2007, he acted on them.

His childhood friends call him a gentle giant.

His former MSU teammates call him a warrior.

The State of Illinois calls him insane.

Two decades ago, as a senior at Proviso West High School outside Chicago, Thompson was considered by many the top defensive lineman in the nation.

In 1996, he was named to the USA TODAY All-USA Team. Recruiting guru Tom Lemming said Thompson was one of two players he had ever witnessed that could make the jump from high school to the NFL. Hall of Famer Bruce Smith was the other.

Thompson, 38, whose given name is Hubert, has no idea who Bruce Smith is. He doesn’t particularly care, either. He is trying to stitch together the pieces of a half-wasted life.

A small sign on the wall in the waiting room in Elgin says, “Brains can get sick, too. But with treatment, they can get better.”

On that Friday in March a decade ago, Thompson threw his 66-year-old neighbor off a three-story staircase to his death.

He is apologetic for what he did, even if his statements of sympathy can sound almost rehearsed. He prays for the victim’s family every night.

Thompson says his thoughts don’t drift to dark places anymore. Five daily anti-psychotic pills tame the beast in Thompson’s head. He described in a three-minute diatribe all the rehabilitation programs he is in.

“Wow, Hubert, you do listen in class,” social worker Mario Rabaza joked.

His release date is March 30, 2067, but Rabaza said it is very likely that Thompson will be a free man within the next decade.

He was found not guilty of his crime by reason of insanity. In other words, he isn’t guilty of any crime. There will be no felony charge on his record, no mention of James A. Malone or a long stint in a mental hospital.

“At the time of my crime, I was mentally ill,” he said in a soft, hushed voice. “I was in denial. I was not thinking about consequences.

“I was sick.”

Finding his passion

Before the bright lights of Division I college football and dimly lit county jail cells, Thompson was a normal kid, his mother Maggie Ross said inside the living room of her quaint apartment off Lorraine Road in Wheaton.

Ross has a shy smile and covers her mouth when she laughs. Her voice is sweet, gentle.

She doesn't recall any warning signs from her youngest child. He enjoyed the simple things: hanging out with friends, shooting hoops and trying to keep up with his 10 older siblings.

“He was real quiet but, he liked to play ball in the parking lots,” said Ross, a certified nursing assistant who recently retired after nearly 40 years at the local VA hospital. “He was your average child.”

For safety – and to give her son every chance to excel – Ross said she moved her family from the west side of Chicago to the western suburbs when Thompson was 12. North Lotus Avenue was no place for a child.

The family settled on 25th Street in the Village of Bellwood. Although it was only 10 miles away, it seemed like a different planet, according to Thompson.

Thompson quickly excelled in athletics, especially on the wrestling mat. He compiled a record of 55-1 during his high school career and won back-to-back heavyweight titles.

He also flourished on the football field, starting three seasons at defensive end and inside linebacker for Proviso West head coach John Wilson.

"He always garnered a lot of attention,” former high school teammate Sidney Lewis said. “(In the Chicago area), it’s very rare for freshmen and sophomores to play varsity and start. He was one of those guys, obviously.”

Thompson finished his senior season with 66 solo tackles. He caused and recovered three fumbles. He had scouts drooling over his 40-yard dash time of 4.7 seconds. He was benching more than 400 pounds at 16 years old.

Thompson was a two-time first-team all-state selection, and labeled the No. 7 player in the country by The National Recruiting Advisor. He was also named to the Parade, PrepStar and Reebok All-America teams.

“He was a beast, man,” close friend and Proviso West teammate Decatur Washington said. “Dude was just huge and athletic. He just dominated.”

It didn’t take long for the recruiting letters to start pouring in. Notre Dame, Florida State, Alabama, Miami and Michigan all wanted a piece of the Proviso West star. So did every other Division I university on the map.

Due to a severe learning disability that left Thompson unable to read or write at grade level, those offers soon dwindled, even though his dominance was on full display every Friday night.

Academics nearly derailed Thompson's dreams.

But when the NCAA passed a measure called Proposition 48 in the mid-1980s, meant to raise standards for freshman eligibility, it left open a loophole: colleges could admit students who didn't qualify, even give them scholarships, so long as they didn't play until they were eligible.

It stipulates minimum standardized test scores and GPA in order to accept an athletic scholarship. This was Thompson’s only shot at going to college.

“I wanted to go to Michigan State,” Thompson said. “(Former MSU head coach Nick) Saban gave me a tutor, classes and the weight room. He did his best to help me out.”

So did Ken Mannie.

Mannie is now entering his 23rd year as the strength and conditioning coach for the Spartan football program. He said he'd heard the rumblings about the physical specimen that was heading to East Lansing by way of Chicago.

He was not disappointed.

“He had a lot of promise when he first came here, that’s for sure,” Mannie said. “The coaches wanted me to put him through the paces. He could just go forever. I was surprised at the great effort he gave. From a physical standpoint, he had some special qualities about him.”

Poor grades would force Thompson to sit out of game action for his first two seasons he was on campus. It was a tough time for him. Playing football was one of the only things in life that he excelled in. For two long years, he was out of his comfort zone, focusing on studying and passing classes.

His patience paid off in 1999.

Spartan Dawg

Alongside Julian Peterson, Amp Campbell, Aric Morris, TJ Turner, Renaldo Hill, Robaire Smith and others, Thompson helped lead the top-ranked defense in college football to a 10-2 record and a berth in the Citrus Bowl. Thompson won the Tommy Love Award as the team's most improved player that fall.

But behind the scenes that season, things were starting to unravel.

In the Spartans' only two losses during the '99 campaign — a 52-28 setback against 20th-ranked Purdue and a 40-10 beat down the following Saturday at No. 16 Wisconsin — Thompson wasn't on the field.

He said he suffered a shoulder injury against Iowa, forcing him to the sidelines. Former MSU teammate Little John Flowers remembers a much different reason for the defensive end's absence.

"Boo Boo was going through one of his spells where he didn’t come to the game," Flowers recalled. "We went to his room, and he stayed in there and didn’t come out. Even Saban was trying to get him to come. He just wouldn’t come out. Boo Boo just didn’t show up to those games."

Before the biggest game of the season -- the Citrus Bowl in Orlando -- instead of focusing on preparation for the No. 10 Florida Gators, Thompson spent the morning arguing with coaches and trainers about his game-issued socks. He didn't want to wear long socks in the Florida heat.

“When he wasn’t on the field, he had some issues not getting addressed,” Flowers said. “You never know what he was going to do. Once you knew him, he was cool with you. He was a great teammate. Everyone loved him aside from the offensive line getting their (butt) kicked by him.”

With 12 seconds remaining in the third quarter of the Citrus Bowl, the world got a glimpse into Thompson's rage.

Florida QB Doug Johnson hit Travis Taylor with a quick slant that he took 39 yards to the end zone to give the Gators a 27-26 lead. Behind the play, Thompson, without a helmet, wrapped his arms around the waist of Florida tackle Kenyatta Walker and tossed him onto his back. Both of them were ejected.

It was Thompson's final game in a Spartan uniform.

Sporting a trimmed black beard, minus a mustache, Thompson interlocked his long fingers on the wooden table in front of him. He said he has no clue who Walker is or that he had an 8-year NFL career.

All he knows is he doesn't regret taking him to the ground that muggy New Year's Day.

“He was grabbing my facemask and uppercutting me, busting my chin,” Thompson said. “Finally I had enough and just picked him up and dropped him on the ground.”

Flowers said after Thompson was ejected, he spent the fourth quarter stewing on the sideline, yelling at Florida players and plotting what he was going to do to Walker.

“We are getting ready to win, and he is still trying to go out there and fight them,” Flowers laughed. "That's Boo Boo. He was intense."

A slight smile creases Thompson’s face when he talks about his final collegiate game, but it’s not because he is trying to act tough. He is grinning because the Spartans won the game, 37-34.

“We were Spartan Dawgs,” he said. “We were like brothers.”

He was a friend

James A. Malone enjoyed simple things. Watching the Cubs. Talking to the mailman. Singing in his church choir.

He loved listening to '60s music on the radio. He even had a nickname on one of the stations he frequently called. “It’s Slim Jim from Lombard,” the host would say.

He wasn’t a big man, standing maybe 5-foot-7. Family members described him as skinny, “frail.”

Malone lived in apartment 340 at Finley Place in southwest Lombard. He never married and didn’t have any children. He didn't have much family at all.

His father died when he was young. His mother raised him. Family members said he was an overprotected child who turned into a timid man.

“He didn’t have a mean bone in his body,” said Malone's cousin, who asked to remain anonymous because she is worried about Thompson's future release. “He was a special person.”

Malone liked to talk to his neighbors. He took a particular interest in the folks down the hall in apartment 301. That was home to Maggie Ross and Hubert Thompson.

Malone liked talking with Thompson, asking about his brief stint in NFL training camp with the Saints and his one year playing with Chicago’s XFL team. He even took Thompson to dinner a few times.

It started as a friendly relationship. Things got much darker in the spring of 2007.

“He would call me and say, ‘the neighbors are crazy,” Malone's cousin said. “He said it always smelled like marijuana. He would say ‘they are smoking that stuff and banging on my door.’”

"They" meant Thompson.

Malone told family members that Thompson was a friend, but the drugs were “whacking him out.”

Thompson used to scream at Malone. He said he was sure his neighbor had been poisoning his food and even his marijuana.

One time, he threw away hundreds of dollars' worth of groceries his mother had bought, he said.

“I thought my mom was trying to kill me, too,” Thompson said. “I thought my whole family was plotting against me.”

Warning signs

Laughing. Loud, continuous and maniacal bellowing is what tipped off his mother.

Thompson was having another "episode," Ross would think. When she would catch him talking to himself, the mother of seven (Thompson's other four siblings are from his father) remembers being scared.

She took him to doctors in his late teenage years. He was diagnosed as bipolar. When Thompson would have outbursts of laughter, Ross said, she would shake his bottle of pills at him and tell him to take them.

He would also do impulsive, odd things like bringing snakes and rabbits into his family's house to keep as pets, forcing Ross to call authorities to have them removed.

Thompson didn’t like the way the medication made him feel: lazy and slow. He said he refused to take the pills anymore.

“I'd make him pancakes and crush up his pills and put them in there under a lot of syrup,” Ross smiled. “He caught me and started watching me cook from then on.”

Thompson said he took his medication daily during his time at MSU, but added that he never felt "insane" while he was in East Lansing. He claims he didn't start to have dark thoughts until he was at least 23.

His mother disagrees.

After leaving MSU and not hearing his name called in the 2000 NFL Draft, Thompson headed back to his mother's home in Illinois. He says that's when he became delusional.

He spoke of a time when he threw boiling hot water on his mother as she laid in the recliner in the living room. He was trying to hurt her because he thought she had been putting poison in his food.

Ross laughed. The water wasn’t even hot. But that day, she acknowledged that he had a crazy look in his eye and called police. Every time he was arrested or forced to take additional medication, his hallucinations only magnified, he said.

Thoughts of hurting his family came often.

Unemployed and diving deeper into alcohol and marijuana use, Thompson started frequenting his old neighborhood in Chicago. In 2002, while trying to protect a young boy in a fight, he was shot. He took one bullet to the waist and another to the leg.

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Ross was horrified to get the news. She didn't know then the shooting might have saved her life.

“We had a family reunion deal coming up, so I thought it would be a perfect time to kill my whole family,” Thompson said.

His tone and his facial expression didn't change.

“But when I was in the hospital, my mom would come and rub my feet and back every day after work. My brother would come, too.

“That’s when I decided I wasn’t going to kill them.”

But his mind didn't quit playing tricks on him.

Over the next five years, Thompson would claim to have stomach cancer, say Nazis were shooting at him and even claim that his semen was being stolen to prevent him from having children. He thought he was Jesus Christ.

And, of course, everything he put in his mouth might have contained poison.

Archive: Ex-Spartan charged with Illinois murder

The breaking point

Thompson killed Malone on a brisk spring afternoon.

Before 2 p.m. that Friday, police reports state, Thompson knocked on Malone’s door.

When the 66-year-old man answered, Thompson “knowingly punched James A. Malone in the head and threw him over a third-story balcony stairwell, knowing it would cause death.”

Thompson is staring into a room filled with other patients visiting with family members. His focus doesn't waver. He has radiant brown eyes, freckles on his nose. The smell of fast food lingers in the air.

The tension is palpable. It's a scene he doesn't often revisit in his mind.

“I’m really sorry for what I did,” Thompson said, rubbing his head once again. “I wish I could turn back time.”

So does Malone's cousin.

“I just remember driving by his apartment and seeing cops and ambulances everywhere,” his cousin recalled. “I was instantly worried because, earlier that day, he had called and left a message on my machine wishing me an early happy birthday. He never had anything going on, so I thought it was weird that he called a day before my birthday. But I’m glad he did.”

Thompson doesn’t deny that he threw Malone to his death. Unarmed, Thompson fled to his sister’s apartment down the hall before surrendering peacefully to more than 50 SWAT team members seven hours later.

“(Jimmy) was so scared of things," Malone's cousin said. "He probably had a heart attack. I can only imagine how scared he was. I was thinking he was paranoid when he talked about the neighbors, but he was telling the truth.”

People who knew Thompson couldn’t believe the news. To them, Boo Boo was a teddy bear, a marshmallow. Numerous friends said he would never pick on anyone smaller than him and, in fact, stood up for the underdog. He was shot protecting a kid from a bully.

“It was terrible,” Ross said. “I just started crying. I couldn’t believe it.”

Washington, who has known Thompson since fifth grade, was driving a semi when he got the news. He doesn’t remember where he was, but he remembers the feeling in his stomach.

“I was sick, man. I was devastated,” he said. “It caught me off guard. I heard he was calm and just dropped him. Everyone knew Boo Boo was a kind dude. I still can’t believe it.”

But Flowers said he caught glimpses in college of what Thompson was capable of.

“I never thought he would go to the extreme of what actually happened,” Flowers said. “Would he fight and end up in jail, knock somebody out or get shot because no one would fight his big ass? Yes. I hate to say it, but sometimes you can see he wasn’t headed in the right direction.”

People vs. Hubert D. Thompson

On Sept. 10, 2009, more than two years after his initial arrest, Thompson sat quietly as DuPage County Judge Peter Dockery uttered the words "not guilty by reason of insanity."

Thompson's attorney, Steven Wagner, requested that judgment. For most of the previous two years, Thompson had been deemed "unfit to stand trial" anyway. He didn't understand the severity of his crime.

Prosecutors didn't fight the ruling.

Surrounded by 13 other men on his unit, Thompson's days quietly begin at 6:15 a.m.

He takes medication throughout the day for paranoid schizophrenia, delusional thinking, a bipolar disorder, borderline intellectual functioning and anger issues. He attends groups focusing on anger, dependency and making the right decisions. His front teeth are missing.

When he stands up, Thompson is still every bit the imposing figure he was on the football field. He spends up to three hours a day in the weight room and likes to jog. He humbly says he can’t do more than 25 push-ups in a row but still looks like he could suit up and play tomorrow.

But football is only a noise on the television in his room. He doesn’t remember that he played against Tom Brady in college. He barely remembers playing with Plaxico Burress.

He says he stays up on current events, but spends most of his time attempting to read the Bible, the Quran and Joel Osteen books. He reads at a fourth-grade level.

He says he is a Muslim now, to the dismay of his mother, a devout Catholic with dozens of crosses in her apartment. There is a prayer rug in his room.

After breakfast, Thompson gets in line to sign up for the three 15-minute phone calls he is allotted each day.

Washington visits as often as he can and puts money on his account for junk food and other luxuries. On Sundays, Ross and various nieces and nephews make the 40-mile round trip from Wheaton.

His father, Jimmie Thompson, visited "twice at most," according to Ross, though the two were close. He died in November of 2010. Thompson went silent went asked about his father.

Thompson has a pass that allows him to roam the 1,000-plus acre grounds in Elgin three times a day. No handcuffs, no guards, just him, walking toward an open, rusty gate on State Street. He knows he'll be out someday.

Thompson said his attack on Malone was unwarranted, and it wasn't the first time. He attacked a person in county jail for no reason and got in bar fights during his time in East Lansing. Thompson was cut by the New Orleans Saints after getting into a fight over an exercise bike.

“I’m not in denial anymore,” he said. “I used to be ashamed to ask for help. I used to be ashamed I couldn’t read. That always bothered me. Being here has changed the way I view things.

"I think positive thoughts now.”

The next step

Rabaza knew Thompson was an athlete but said he never watched the YouTube videos of him playing for the Spartans. He was stunned to hear some of the things Thompson had accomplished.

It's easy to forget Thompson was a football star. He never talks about it.

Rabaza said Thompson hasn’t had any problems in the six months he has watched over him. He has had few write-ups the last decade and is thought of as a "model patient" behind these walls.

Court documents say there was a period when his maniacal laughing would return, when he was scribbling page after page of scripture. Doctors tweaked his medication. The laughter subsided.

The 320 forensic patients in the hospital rarely cause major problems, Rabaza adds. He reiterates that this isn’t prison.

There aren’t armed guards in watch towers or gangs or stabbings or riots. Elgin is labeled medium security: one step away from living in a halfway house and transitioning back into the world.

It worries Malone's cousin.

"I was hoping that if you murder someone, you go to prison for the rest of your life," she said. "He is sick. There is a chance he could get out and do this again."

Thompson said he has no plans to hurt anyone ever again. He is ready to start his life.

“I’ll always regret what I did to him,” Thompson said. “If it didn’t happen to him, it could’ve been someone else, even my mother, who was so great to me. I feel like I am back to myself again."

Because of a call from coach Mannie, Thompson said he is now focusing on earning forgiveness from God and the Malone family.

Mannie recently re-entered Thompson’s life. Thompson used to refer to his former strength coach at MSU as “father." He spent countless hours with him in the weight room during his time in East Lansing.

Mannie said the two talked about football, but spent a majority of the time discussing life, responsibility and making right decisions. Those talks carried over after Thompson was ousted from the NFL and the XFL folded after just one season.

Mannie admits that things became heated at times, like the first time the two talked over the phone after Malone's death. None of the advice or guidance seemed to work.

“He never gave me the perception that he was a mean-spirited guy,” Mannie said. “Unfortunately, this is a tragic story on a lot of levels. (Dealing with Thompson) was a daily challenge. I’m not going to say it was easy. My approach is just to pray for him and pray for the family of Mr. Malone, which I have done.”

Thompson wants to speak with Malone's family, to apologize, but he can't reach out himself. Contacting victim's families is strictly prohibited. He said praying for the Malones is a new routine for him.

Malone's cousin won't rule out the possibility of a meeting, but isn't exactly eager. Thompson still scares her.

Before heading back to his pod for lunch, Thompson sat still for a photo. Asked if he wanted to smile, he calmly declined.

“I don’t want the (Malone) family to think I am proud of what I did," he said. "I don’t want to try and look happy to be in here.”

Small steps. Signs of growth.

As for his release. Thompson said he doesn't think much about it.

“When God is ready for me to be free, I’ll be free.”

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Contact Cody Tucker at (517) 377-1070 or cjtucker@lsj.com and follow him on Twitter @CodyTucker_LSJ.