It was the middle of the night, and Denice D. Denton was aimlessly driving her mother all over San Francisco. Ms. Denton believed the police were following her. The previous day, she had been discharged from a psychiatric hospital after a six-day stay.
Her mother, Carolyn Mabee, had picked her up at the hospital on June 23. Ms. Denton, 46, who had been on medical leave from her job as chancellor of the University of California at Santa Cruz since June 15, was due back at work in two days.