The first thing I notice is that the story relies entirely on two sources:

1. The letter from the parents insisting the FBI knew about the schizophrenia.

2. “Federal documents” proving that FBI agents knew about the schizophrenia.

This story was from 2017, so those documents must have existed for a while, but they are not linked in the story that is relying on them, for some reason.

I went hunting for the documents on my own.

https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-varnell-8/

This is the only mention of schizophrenia in these documents:

Further, although there was trial testimony that in March 2017 the government became aware of an allegation Varnell suffered from schizophrenia, one of the FBI agents involved in the investigation testified she was not aware of any evidence Varnell suffered from any "schizophrenic delusion or hallucinations during the course of [the] investigation or on the day of his arrest." Agent Williams, who interacted with Varnell more than any other FBI agent, testified he was not told Varnell was schizophrenic. And Dr. Roberson, Varnell's expert witness, testified that Varnell was "treated on an outpatient basis for schizophrenia between 2016-2017, and his symptoms were described as being stable with psychotropic medication." Dr. Roberson also testified that unless a person with paranoid schizophrenia is "exhibiting their paranoia towards you . . . or . . . talking about their delusions," "you might not ever know that they are mentally ill."

So, everything in the document that concerns schizophrenia specifically makes the case that the FBI didn’t know and wouldn’t necessarily have known if he wasn’t in mid-episode.

Which is the opposite of what your source claimed.

Of course, the FBI could be lying, no question, but then, it’s just a “he said, she said” with the parents, with no proof on either side, and I can’t take sides without proof.

Now, perhaps your source meant a different set of documents as proof, but since they didn’t provide that proof, and I already tried and failed to provide that proof for them, I’m not really sure where else I can go from here.

To be clear, you won’t bait me into defending the FBI or distasteful practices, but my willingness to accept they could have done this is far more generous than my willingness to accept that this did happen, based purely on your source.