Accused killer who fled psychiatric hospital captured

Anthony Garver, 28, escaped from Western State Hospital Wednesday night along with Mark Alexander Adams, 58. Both were patients at the psychiatric hospital.

Adams was accused of domestic assault in 2014. Authorities were able to locate him shortly after the escape.

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. He was found too mentally ill for trial and was being held at Western State Hospital after a judge found that he was a danger to himself or others.

The two crawled out a window in a locked, lower-security unit of the hospital.

Garver was moved to a less-secure unit at the psychiatric hospital after the murder charge was dismissed and he was placed under a civil commitment. He has been convicted of multiple charges and twice fled from authorities by stealing a car or leading a high-speed chase.

"He has a history of running from law enforcement and of not doing what he's supposed to do, so I hope when he is caught, he'll be placed in a facility that has better security," said Spokane County sheriff's deputy Mark Gregory.

Western State Hospital says the men were discovered missing 45 minutes after they were last seen, but police said it took an hour and a half. There was no immediate way to reconcile the different timelines.

The escape is the latest in a litany of problems at the 800-bed hospital south of Tacoma, where assaults on both staff and patients have occurred.

Federal regulators have repeatedly cited the facility for safety concerns and threatened to cut millions in federal funding. A federal judge also has said the hospital has failed to provide timely competency services to mentally ill people charged with crimes.

The state has tried to fix some of the problems by increasing funding to hire more workers, but the hospital has struggled with recruiting and retaining staffers.

Despite increased federal scrutiny, assaults have persisted at the hospital, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

A patient with a history of violent behavior choked and punched a mental health technician on March 26, according to an internal report. A March 23 report 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.

Injured employees missed 41,301 days of work between 2010 and 2014, and on-the-job injuries forced staff to move to other jobs, like desk work, for 7,760 days during that period, according to state Occupational Safety and Health Administration records.

More than half of the 700 injuries reported by nurses, psychiatric technicians, counselors, psychiatrists and other workers during that period were caused by violent patient assaults, the records said.