Man who fled Washington mental hospital caught by police, third patient missing

SPOKANE, Wash. --A man whoescaped from a Washington state psychiatric hospital where he was held after being found too mentally ill to face charges that he tortured a woman to death was captured Friday.

Anthony Garver, 28, was taken into custody by law enforcement in Spokane, Washington State Patrol spokesman Todd Bartolac said.

Garver, 28, escaped Wednesday night with Mark Alexander Adams, 58, a patient who had been accused of domestic assault in 2014. The two crawled out a window in a locked, lower-security unit of the hospital. Adams was captured the next morning.

Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said a K-9 unit found Garver hiding under a pile of debris in a wooded area near his parents' home around 8:15 Friday night. He was taken into custody without incident and did not have any weapons with him, according to CBS affiliate KREM in Spokane.

The sheriff said he planned to talk with state legislators and the governor about issues involving Western State Hospital, citing the escape.

"The state of Washington needs to get a clue," Knezovich said. "This cannot happen again."

Earlier Friday, the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services said a third patient also left the hospital Wednesday, the same day Garver and Adams fled. The incidents did not appear related.

In a Facebook post, DSHS said the patient, who was not identified, had been part of an escorted group visiting what was called the hospital's "fashion center."

"The patient then left the center unnoticed through an exit door. The patient's whereabouts are unknown," the department said.

Law enforcement was notified after a search of the facility failed to locate the patient, who had been found incompetent to stand trial on residential burglary charges and "violation of a no contact order."

"Patients committed to our state psychiatric facilities are either criminal defendants or a danger to themselves or others upon admittance," DSHS said in the post. "The hospital's goal is treatment that leads patients back into the community and having grounds' privileges is part of that."

Garver was charged in 2013 with tying a 20-year-old woman to her bed with electrical cords, stabbing her 24 times in the chest and slashing her throat, prosecutors said.

He had been moved to a lower-security unit of the state's largest psychiatric hospital after a judge said mental health treatment to prepare him to face criminal charges was not working and ordered him held as a danger to himself or others.

Authorities said Garver bought a bus ticket from Seattle across the state to Spokane, where he was spotted April 7. Authorities there searched for him in a wooded area with dogs, a SWAT team and helicopters after he stopped at his parents' home in the area.

His father called authorities to say his son had stopped by but left after a short time.

The escape was the latest problem for Western State Hospital, where violent assaults on both staff and patients have led to federal scrutiny. It has increased in the wake of the escape and two recent attacks.

U.S. regulators have repeatedly cited the facility over safety concerns and threatened to cut millions in federal funding. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave the hospital until May 3 to address the violations.

Patients in the hospital's lower-security unit are checked every hour, said Carla Reyes, assistant director of the Department of Social and Health Services' Behavioral Health Administration, which oversees mental health services in the state.

Some high-security units require patient checks every 15 minutes, but Garver was not placed in one, staffers said. Security staff was trying to determine how the men loosened the bolts on the locked windows, state officials said.

Officials are conducting a safety review of the hospital and will bring in outside experts to help, Reyes said.

The state has tried to fix some of the problems by increasing funding so more staff could be hired. But the hospital has struggled with recruiting and retaining workers.

Licensed practical nurse Craig Gibelyou, who works at the hospital, called the state's efforts to hire more nurses to "a small shot in the dark."

"It's kind of like the 'perfect storm,' I guess," Gibelyou told CBS affiliate KIRO in Seattle. "You have a staffing issue. You have the building issues. You have lack of cohesiveness in the staff and the lack of team building if you will on these various wards."

The history of violence at the facility stretches back years. Hundreds of employees have suffered concussions, fractures and cuts in assaults by patients, resulting in $6 million in workers' compensation claims between 2013 and 2015. Patients also have attacked other patients, causing serious injuries.

Most recently, a patient with a history of violent behavior choked and punched a mental health technician on March 26, according to an internal report. Another report on March 23 said a male patient slipped out of his monitors and was found in a bathroom with another male patient, who said he was sexually assaulted.

"It's a dangerous environment to work in," Gibelyou said. "So with that danger coupled with those low wages, it's not worth it to a lot of people."