{"id":153719,"date":"2026-01-28T19:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T19:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/153719\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T19:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T19:36:12","slug":"social-media-shows-alleged-s-f-hospital-attacker-was-unraveling-mentally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/153719\/","title":{"rendered":"Social media shows alleged S.F. hospital attacker was unraveling mentally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Multiple social media accounts for Wilfredo Tortolero Arriechi, the 35-year-old man accused of stabbing<\/a> a San Francisco General Hospital social worker to death in early December, show an apparent mental unraveling in the days and weeks before the killing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tortolero Arriechi\u2019s posts before he allegedly stabbed social worker Alberto Rangel<\/a> on Dec. 4. included incoherent ramblings about sexuality, depression, and missing his family in Venezuela. An October video posted on Instagram Threads shows Tortolero Arriechi rehearsing speaking with his doctor \u2014 his alleged target the day he killed Rangel \u2014 about changing medications.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hospital workers and prosecutors at the District Attorney\u2019s Office believe that Tortolero Arriechi was seeking to attack his doctor at Ward 86, the HIV clinic<\/a> at San Francisco General Hospital, when Rangel intercepted him<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tortolero Arriechi repeatedly stabbed Rangel, who died two days later.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Mission Local has not been able to speak with Tortolero Arriechi about the social media accounts, posts reviewed by Mission Local show the same man who has appeared this month at court hearings, with his full name, birthdate, and matching medical information, including his treatment at Ward 86.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tortolero Arriechi has been charged with murder. His public defender Sylvia Nguyen told Mission Local in an interview<\/a> earlier this month that he was \u201csuffering a mental health crisis.\u201d For weeks after the incident, Tortolero Arriechi was held in the jail-operated psychiatric ward, unable to appear in court<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nguyen did not say what caused the crisis, but Tortolero Arriechi\u2019s posts offer a glimpse into his mental state in the months leading up to the afternoon of Dec. 4. In a video posted Oct. 28, he rehearsed the same conversation with his doctor three times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can\u2019t give me the pill, then I\u2019m going to have to fire you as my doctor and find another one,\u201d Tortolero Arriechi says into the camera in the video, less than six weeks before the stabbing. \u201cAnd that will be very sad.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

After a brief pause, Tortolero Arriechi begins another take: \u201cHola, doctor \u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AA doctor\u2019s note with a knife through it, posted by Tortolero Arriechi in October 2025. Image from Instagram Threads.<\/p>\n

Two days later, on Oct. 30, he posted on his Threads account a photo of his Ward 86 clinic visit summary, printed in July, with a knife piercing through it and into a doorframe. The name of the doctor he was allegedly targeting was on the document.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe knife is to kill the door,\u201d the post read. \u201cIt\u2019s always open.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tortolero Arriechi\u2019s doctor reported threatening behavior in the weeks prior to the incident. In a document<\/a> obtained by Mission Local summarizing a November security meeting between public health officials, the sheriff\u2019s office, and private contractors, Tortolero Arriechi was \u201cunder investigation\u201d following alleged aggressive outbursts toward the Ward 86 doctor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the day of the stabbing<\/a>, which was first reported by Mission Local, a sheriff\u2019s deputy was sent to the clinic on the sixth floor to provide added security at the request of the hospital\u2019s director of security.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to multiple witnesses, the deputy was not monitoring<\/a> the entrance to the clinic and was not nearby when Tortolero Arriechi arrived. The sheriff\u2019s department has backed up its deputy\u2019s actions, stating he was tasked with guarding the doctor, not seeking out Tortolero Arriechi.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The day before the stabbing, on Dec. 3, Tortolero Arriechi posted several cryptic messages on Threads.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turns out that now Catholics have demons inside them,\u201d Tortolero Arriechi said, wearing a HenHouse Brewing beanie and smiling into the camera before his face turned grave. \u201cSo when you\u2019re Catholic but you don\u2019t have demons, it\u2019s complicated.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In another video from the same day, Tortolero Arriechi spoke to the camera in the dark: \u201cYou know, so they can see it after my death. Because that\u2019s how we artists are.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those were the last posts on Tortolero Arriechi\u2019s Threads account before he was arrested.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For years before the stabbing, however, Tortolero Arriechi\u2019s posts showed an extremely positive, family-oriented, young man who was dedicated to his work and friends. He posted about his hardships living in Venezuela and leaving his family to work in Colombia. Nevertheless, he seemed motivated to succeed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAll this sacrifice will be worth it\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mission Local reviewed Tortolero Arriechi\u2019s posts dating back to 2015.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starting in his mid-20s, Tortolero Arriechi chronicled his life in great detail. He posted selfies in early 2015 amid a massive recession in Venezuela, grumbling to his Instagram followers about standing in line to buy milk, and losing electricity in Maracay, his hometown near the Caribbean coast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AWilfredo Tortolero Arriechi in Medellin in 2016. Photo from Instagram.<\/p>\n

He shared photos of himself with his friends and family, and memes about staying positive through life\u2019s obstacles. His friends, fellow Venezuelans \u2014 many of them now in different parts of the world \u2014 encouraged him or commiserated about missing home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the best feeling to know that you overcame a crisis,\u201d Tortolero Arriechi wrote in a comment to a friend in the months in 2015 before he left Maracay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By August 2015, Tortolero Arriechi had crossed the border and was living in Cucuta, Colombia. His posts indicate that aside from some visits home, he remained in Colombia for about seven years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMissing my family, my country, my black beans, my arepa with cheese, my mom,\u201d Tortolero Arriechi wrote from Colombia at the end of his first month away from home. \u201cAll this sacrifice will be worth it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A few weeks later, he took his first airline flight, to Medell\u00edn, later posting that he was \u201ca little anxious\u201d about his ability to stay in the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the next few years in Medell\u00edn, and later in Bogot\u00e1, Tortolero Arriechi worked in restaurants \u2014 work that was an apparent source of pride. He posted selfies wearing an apron and a cook\u2019s scarf, and wrote on his social media biography: \u201cI\u2019m working hard for me and mine.\u201d On another profile, his biography read: \u201cI am a reasonable and hardworking person.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He reflected on the tough situation back home, and said he prayed to God that \u201cthings would improve in Venezuela.\u201d But otherwise, he seemed to enjoy life in Colombia, posting photos of himself sightseeing with friends, attending sporting events, even giving out aguapanela and bread to those living in the streets of Medell\u00edn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe responsibility of giving or taking a life\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At some point, things changed for Tortolero Arriechi. It is unclear exactly when he arrived in the United States, but in July 2025 he posted, purportedly from San Francisco, that he had been in the country for nearly two years. He left Venezuela, he wrote, seeking \u201ca better place.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AWilfredo Tortolero Arriechi cooks in Medellin in 2016. Photo from Instagram.<\/p>\n

\u201cI returned to Venezuela only to find that it wasn\u2019t my place anymore, saw injustice, saw gay friends die imprisoned,\u201d he wrote. \u201cFar from family, far from my country, not always treated like a human being, but that\u2019s how it is here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

His cheerful chronicling of life was replaced with screenshots of lengthy, disconnected diatribes written in his phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are killing me, they are grabbing me,\u201d he wrote on Nov. 28, 2025, less than a week before the stabbing. \u201cI\u2019m not going to hand over the knife so they can kill me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That same day he wrote: \u201cI also want to confess to you that I have been thinking a lot on the topic of death, killing and dying, the responsibility of giving or taking a life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But even on the eve of the stabbing, Tortolero Arriechi was thinking of his family. He posted a comment on a video apparently addressed to his mother, referring to \u201cthe explosion,\u201d \u201cthe revolution,\u201d and communism.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, he lamented: \u201cImagine, you can\u2019t even go visit your sister \u2026 there is a God, and he doesn\u2019t offer comfort.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Multiple social media accounts for Wilfredo Tortolero Arriechi, the 35-year-old man accused of stabbing a San Francisco General…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[723,101,29839,103,102,104,106,105,1878],"class_list":["post-153719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-crime","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-general-hospital","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-stabbing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}