Capture of man heightens scrutiny of psychiatric hospital

Published 2:00 pm Saturday, April 9, 2016

SPOKANE, Wash. — The capture of a man found hiding under debris in the woods after he escaped from a psychiatric hospital where he was held because he was found too mentally ill to face murder charges comes amid heightened scrutiny of the facility.

Anthony Garver, 28, was apprehended without incident Friday night in Spokane. Garver was taken into custody by law enforcement in the city, Washington State Patrol spokesman Todd Bartolac said. Garver escaped from the Western State Hospital on Wednesday after he crawled out a window of a locked, lower-security unit with another patient, Mark Alexander Adams, 58, who was caught the next day.

The escapes intensified federal scrutiny on the hospital, Washington’s largest psychiatric facility. Western State had already been under investigation for attacks on patients and staff and a failure to improve safety.

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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 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.