Police: Insane inmate planned escape for months
06:09 PM PDT on Monday, September 21, 2009
KING Staff and Associated Press
Video: Insane escapee back at Eastern State Hospital
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SPOKANE, Wash. -- An insane killer is back in Eastern State Hospital after escaping while on a field trip to the Spokane County Interstate Fair.
Questions now being asked are why was he allowed out in the first place, and why did it take two hours for supervisors to report him missing?
Phillip Arnold Paul, 47, spent three days on the run before he was captured Sunday afternoon near Goldendale. On Monday, he was back at Eastern State Hospital under orders from a judge.
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Authorities said Paul appeared to have carefully planned to disappear into the crowd at the fair during a trip with 30 fellow patients on Thursday.
"This should not have happened and I cannot make excuses for it. I am so sorry," said Susan Dreyfus, Department of Social and Health Services Secretary. She is vowing swift action, but so far, everyone's still on the job.
"The person who was responsible for him at the fair is still working because I need the facts," said Dreyfus.
Earlier this month, a Yakima County Superior Court judge said, "Mr. Paul does represent a threat to public safety because, regardless of the reasons, his condition has deteriorated. He has become more aggressive."
KREM.com
Phillip Paul
Despite that, the insane killer was allowed to attend a county fair on Family Day.
"This trip should not have happened," said Dreyfus.
When captured, he was carrying a sleeping bag and a backpack with food, clothing and many of his personal items from Eastern State. Paul, an amateur musician who posts songs on MySpace, was also carrying a guitar. Ominously, a hand scicle protruded from the pack when he was captured.
Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said Paul conned a friend into giving him a ride from Spokane to Goldendale. The friend believed Paul had been legally released. When the friend saw news reports of the escape, he contacted authorities and led them to the point where he had dropped off Paul on Thursday.
Spokane Co. Sheriff's Dept.
Phillip Arnold Paul
In the end, it was aircraft—and a familiar face—that cornered Paul in Goldendale, on a rural highway about 80 miles south of Yakima. Paul exited the wilderness just off Goldendale-Bickleton Road just after 4 p.m. Sunday and came face-to-face with a Spokane County Sheriff's detective who had captured him during a previous escape during a field trip to Medical Lake in 1991.
"He knew that he'd been located, he'd been feeling presence of helicopter all day long, and he surrendered without incident," said Knezovich.
Deputies arrested Paul, who reportedly offered no resistance.
"It appeared that he was going to voluntarily turn himself in because of the pressure of the ground force we had in the area," said Klickitat County Sheriff Rick McComas. "He came out of the brush, onto the roadway, as law enforcement officers were going by. His intent was to voluntarily give himself up because he knew we were going to find him."
It was similar to his 1991 capture.
"He cooperated with us in 1991. We didn't have any problems until we got down to the jail. That's when he attacked me," said Detective Roger W. Knight.
Following the arrest in 1991, Paul knocked Knight unconscious in the jail booking area, separating his shoulder, and was convicted of first-degree escape and second-degree assault.
Last week's escape was apparently planned after Paul's efforts to move from the mental hospital to a residential facility in downtown Spokane were rejected by a judge earlier this month. The judge found that Paul represented "a threat to public safety."
Paul had petitioned and won conditional release to the downtown facility, called The Carlyle, twice in the past, fathering a child during one of his releases. His most recent release ended in January after his mental condition reportedly deteriorated.
Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, he was committed for the 1987 strangling and slashing of 78-year-old Ruth Mottley in Sunnyside. Paul, 25 at the time, snapped Mottley's neck and slashed her throat twice. He then doused her body with gasoline and buried her in her own flower garden. Paul told authorities that voices in his head told him Mottley was a witch who was casting spells on him.
Mottley was a retired educator who had founded the town's historical society and appeared on a list of Washington's 100 most influential women.
On his My Space page, Paul talks about his schizophrenia and the medications he takes. Identifying his band as Philly Willy and the Hillbillies, he posted songs that called Eastern State the "nut hut," the "castle on the hill," and a "palace of the pill."
On the site, Paul referred to the killing of Mottley.
"A four second mistake took Phil on a path no one could have imagined. A person lay dead at his feet."
Given Paul's history, many are wondering why Paul would ever be released from incarceration.
"There is an extreme amount of anger in the law enforcement community that this even took place," said Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich. "My question is if somebody was noncompliant in taking their medications, what made them believe he would be compliant on a trip to the Spokane Fair on Family Day?"
Knezovich plans to ask the state Legislature to ban field trips for the criminally insane. He also plans to bill the state for helicopter flight time and overtime for about 10 deputies.
Eastern patients have taken outings into the community for years, and hospital officials say they can be a useful tool in treatment. All such trips are on hold as the state examines its practices in light of the escape. The state Department of Social and Health Services has promised a security review will be completed within 15 days.
KREM.com contributed to this report.
Edited by user
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 3:55:19 AM
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