Hi, I'm Ruby Kramer. I'm a National Enterprise reporter. I wrote this story as part of our

Deep Read series, which showcases narrative journalism here at the Washington Post. So I came to this story

because I kept seeing headlines about people who had

made threats, especially threats against politicians. So I wanted to figure out

what are the conditions in which this is now happening more and more and more.

I wanted to find one and basically completely dissect it. What makes someone want to make a threat? How does it happen?

Why does it happen? When the threat is then made?

What happens next? How is it investigated?

How is it adjudicated in the court?

And that search led me eventually to a man named Joe Morelli who was just released from

federal prison back in December for making threats. Morelli's story is the story of

one man who in the midst of a mental health crisis threatened one of the most well-known and

controversial elected officials in the Republican Party.

Okay, here's the story. The night he made the threat, Joe Morelli was exactly where he is now two years later on his couch.

The couch is blue and beginning to sag.

It sits in the living room of his small apartment in South Central New York.

Since Morelli, 52, also sleeps on the couch every night.

He keeps a piece of plywood beneath the cushions, because

the softness of the cushions makes his back hurt. At the foot of the couch, he stores a few stacks

of old family photos,

including several of his two children.

And he looks at the photos sometimes when he is feeling lonely,

...