COEUR d'ALENE - Shortly before violently attacking a Bayview family with a framing hammer and kitchen knife on Dec. 19, 2010, Larry W. Cragun stripped the box-spring of his bed down to the metal frame searching for a hidden government recording device. It wasn't there.

"It must have taken days, hours," his mother, Valerie Benda, testified Monday during Cragun's sentencing hearing, which will stretch into today.

A demon paid him a visit at his Bayview trailer home overlooking Lake Pend Oreille. He constantly said the government was watching him, following him. The government's effort was massive, with hundreds of paid government agents following him. Someone poisoned the coffee in his home, he told her.

"He was believing things that were not real," said Benda, of Sandpoint.

Cragun, 32, pleaded guilty in March in 1st District Court to first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated battery. Prosecutors are seeking to put him away until he's in his 70s.

He killed 43-year-old Patty Heath, whose head absorbed five blows from his hammer. Her mother-in-law, Lorraine Wallis, 59, has had four surgeries to repair the damage two blows of the hammer caused.

"My skull was so thick, it was the only thing that saved my life," Wallis testified. "I just hope that Larry feels some sort of ... remorse. You took a good woman, Larry."

Patty Heath took daily care of Wallis, who already had health problems before the attack in her trailer next door to Cragun's.

Wallis talked about her regular bouts with memory loss and headaches. Her fourth surgery was three weeks ago.

Patty Heath's son, Jedidiah Heath, told the court, "I've been working hard not to remember that day."

He said Cragun burst into Wallis' home, shouted obscenities and then started hammering.

Jed Heath suffered a blow to the head and arm.

"I loved my mom very much," he said.

He said he and Cragun at one time were friendly, and would lift weights together.

Eventually, Cragun became angry with him after Jed Heath began having physical relationships with two different women that Cragun had been involved with earlier.

Soon, Cragun was accusing Jed Heath of breaking into his trailer and called police on him.

"I told him if he did it again (called police), I'd beat him up," Jed Heath said.

Patty Heath's husband and Jed Heath's father, Mike Heath, the fourth person attacked by Cragun in Wallis' home, said Patty Heath was "one of the most sweet, caring people you'd ever meet."

He said his wife was happiest when helping others, including his mom, Wallis.

"That woman never did anything to anyone," said Mike Heath, 42.

He recalled Cragun, the hammer in one hand and the knife in the other, trying to kill everyone in his mother's trailer that day.

He recalled Cragun bursting in just as the four family members had finished breakfast and sat down to watch TV.

He came in the front door, attacked, then went out the slider, heading back down to his house through the snow

Cragun would toss the hammer onto his deck. The knife was left at the house after throwing it at Mike Heath.

Cragun went down into town, told some people what he had done and then called 911.

"I personally think he should have got the (electric) chair," Mike Heath said. He and his wife were married for 21 years.

Cragun, in his usual red-and-white jail suit, sat quietly throughout the hearing.

Cragun has said he "confronted" the family because he believed they had molested his daughter and raped his wife. He has had multiple versions of what he believes happened that day, and what his motives were. His ex-wife has said the rape allegations were complete lies.

He has said his wife was raped when he was going through chemotherapy because of testicular cancer.

Another neighbor of Cragun's and others who knew him in Bayview said he had been acting irrationally before the attacks.

Days before, Cragun distributed fliers around town saying the government was conducting surveillance and invading people's minds with what he called a "brain-wave generator" shaped like an umbrella and hiding 1,400 feet below the surface of the lake.

In the flier, a copy of which was obtained by The Press, he wrote that he was "an unwilling test subject."

Bayview is well known for the longtime presence of the U.S. Navy, and its acoustic research detachment.

Cragun would reportedly wear a tinfoil hat to keep the brain waves from controlling him.

He said what was happening with the brain-wave machine was a top-secret government effort, and the feds were after him because he was on to them.

In a jail-house interview with a local TV news station, Cragun said the government wanted him to "denounce his god," and "go to a homosexual party."

He also said somebody urinated on his bed and raped his dog.

"These are some sick puppies," he told the reporter.

Two mental health doctors who worked with Cragun, reviewed his history and interviewed those close to him, said he has been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia since at least 2001.

Craig Beaver, a clinical psychologist, said when Cragun lost a testicle because of cancer it aggravated his paranoid delusions. Cragun was diagnosed with cancer in 2008.

Cragun currently takes an antipsychotic medication to control the effects of his paranoid schizophrenia.

Another doctor said Cragun was taking testosterone after his surgery, and taking too much could have led to more aggression. Cragun also was taking the muscle booster Creatine, which could have caused more aggression, said forensic psychiatrist Camille LaCroix.

She said Cragun must continue taking antipsychotic medication for the rest of his life.

Cragun's mother, Valerie Benda, said her son was evaluated by another doctor, who also found Cragun was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia before the attacks.

Seriously concerned about his behavior, she wanted him to see a doctor. But she had to trick him before he would submit to a mental evaluation.

She and Cragun's stepfather told Cragun that his seeing the doctor was more for their benefit, because they thought they were going crazy.

"You go have one (mental evaluation), and then we'll have one," she said she told him.

He didn't have the money for the medication, however, she said.

While Cragun has been jailed, he sent his mother letters accusing her of being against him now, too.

"It wasn't him," she cried.

As she finished her testimony, Benda said, "I'm very sorry to the Heath family ... for the pain my son caused you."

Lorraine Wallis, the large incision from her recent surgery visible across the top of her head, covered her face and cried.

Benda asked Judge Ben Simpson to just treat her son fairly.

The sentencing hearing resumes at 9 a.m. today.