The man who stabbed 11 people at a Walmart near Traverse City last July will not face a criminal conviction after a judge accepted Bradford Gille's plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, ending the case and sending him instead to a state psychiatric facility, the Grand Traverse County prosecutor's office announced on Tuesday, Sept. 8.
A judge had previously ruled him incompetent to stand trial. The court reviewed evaluations from the Center for Forensic Psychiatry and concluded Gille was mentally ill at the time of the attack, and that his illness left him unable to understand that what he was doing was wrong or to control his conduct within the law, the news release from the prosecutor's office states.
All victims survived. The plea covers
one count of terrorism and 11 counts of assault with intent to murder stemming from the July 26, 2025 attack.
Gille will be committed to the Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Saline for treatment. He is to be evaluated after 60 days, at which point prosecutors expect a petition to be filed in probate court seeking to continue his treatment. Supervision will fall to the Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity Committee, which operates under the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
Officials said Gille is "highly unlikely" to be released into a non-secure setting, according to the release, citing the severity of the attack and his prior insanity finding in 2017 — a judge had found Gille not guilty by reason of insanity after police discovered him digging up a grave at a Petoskey cemetery the year prior.
Gille told police he feared people were being buried alive.
Court records show Gille had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder years before the northern Michigan stabbings. His mother told the Free Press he had also been diagnosed with a form of schizophrenia. He had moved through Michigan's criminal justice system for more than two decades, with cases dismissed or reduced amid mental health concerns, a Detroit Free Press review of court records and archives found.
Footage of the attack shows a man carrying a large backpack moving through the store. The first victim, a woman, appears to be struck from behind and falls to the floor. He then attacks other shoppers at random before running out of the store and into the parking lot, where he stabs a final victim in the crosswalk. Bystanders tackled him there, among them a man carrying a licensed pistol.
Shoppers who spoke with the Free Press described panic inside the store as people ran.
Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. Contact her at asahouri@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Judge: Traverse City Walmart stabbing suspect not guilty by insanity
