Second escapee behind bars after ‘good ole fashioned police work’

The second of two Western State Hospital escapees was captured in the Spokane area on Friday evening, according to the Washington State Patrol.

“It was plain and simple good ole fashioned police work that captured Mr. Garver,” said Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich.

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Anthony Garver, 28, and Mark Alexander Adams, 58, escaped from the hospital Wednesday night. Both were patients at the psychiatric hospital.

On Friday, the hospital revealed another patient was missing. That patient, who authorities did not consider an immediate danger to the public, has not been found since failing to return from a group outing the same day the other two men escaped. The incidents did not appear related.

A K-9 team tracked Garver down hiding in some debris in a wooded area near Spokane on Friday.

“Food and water were his enemy,” Knezovich said in a news conference Friday night. “He is severely dehydrated.”

It was discovered that Garver requested a passport and may have been trying to get to Morocco. No weapons were found with Garver, according to the sheriff.

“This cannot happen again,” Knezovich said. “I think I will have a discussion with our state Legislature and our governor.”

Garver was last seen on Thursday in the Spokane area where his parents live after his father called authorities to report his son had stopped by briefly. Authorities have used SWAT teams, dogs and helicopters to search for him.

Garver had been 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. The murder charge was dismissed after a judge said mental health treatment to prepare him for trial was not working.

Mark Alexander Adams, 58, who escaped with Garver, had been charged with domestic assault in 2014. Like Garver, he was found too mentally ill to stand trial and a judge ordered him held at the hospital.

Adams was captured the net morning after getting on a public bus not far from the hospital.

State officials would not explain why Garver, an ex-felon with a history of running from authorities, was kept in a lower-security area. Some high-security units require patient checks every 15 minutes, but Garver was not placed in one, staffers say.

“He was in a locked area with locked windows and hourly checks,” said Kathy Spears, a spokeswoman for the Department of Social and Health Services, which oversees the state’s mental health care.

The hospital says the men were discovered missing 45 minutes after they were last seen, but police said it took an hour and a half. Security staff was inspecting the windows Friday to determine how the men loosened the bolts.

Garver was under more restrictive conditions than the other patient missing on Friday from the hospital. That person, who was deemed unfit for trial on residential burglary charges, had gone with an escorted group to buy clothing outside the hospital and left “unnoticed through an exit door” Wednesday, Spears said. The hospital did not identify the patient.

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.

Federal regulators sent notices to the hospital four times last year after inspectors found it failed to ensure the safety. The facility has until May 3 to address the violations or lose millions in funding.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.