Third patient missing from Western State Hospital
Apr 8, 2016, 2:04 PM | Updated: 5:02 pm
Officials stop vehicles as they search in Spokane Valley on April 7 for escaped mental patient Anthony Garver. (AP)
(AP)
The Washington State Department of Human Services confirmed that a third patient is missing from the Western State Hospital this week and has not been found.
The currently unnamed patient left the civil ward on Tuesday at 10:15 a.m. after being apart of an escorted group for a visit to the fashion center, according to DSHS. The group was due to return to the ward within the hour. DSHS says the patient brought along some clothes to the fashion center and left the center unnoticed through an exit door.
Lakewood Police Chief Mike Zaro is referring to this as a “walk away” as opposed to an escape because he had grounds privileges.
“This was not considered an ‘escape,'” Zaro said. “There’s a difference between an escape and an unauthorized leave.
“We certainly wouldn’t put the same resources into that as we would the incident that occurred at Western State Hospital Wednesday evening,” he added.
DSHS says the patient was civilly committed to the hospital after criminal charges of residential burglary and a violation of a no-contact-order DSHS dismissed due to incompetency to stand trial.
DSHS says staff notified hospital security, who searched campus grounds with no results. The Lakewood Police Department was also notified.
The Western State Hospital reported that two patients had escaped the psychiatric facility on Wednesday by crawling out a window in a locked, lower-security unit.
One of the two individuals, Mark Alexander Adams, 58, who had been accused of domestic assault in 2014, was captured the next morning. Anthony Garver, who remains at large, 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. He was found too mentally ill to stand trial.
