Psych hospital had 17 escapes

HONOLULU—More than a dozen escapes have occurred over the past eight years at a Hawaii psychiatric hospital where a patient who admitted killing a woman decades ago walked off the grounds and made it to California before he was captured.

Many of the 17 escapes between 2010 and this year happened when a patient broke “curfew” and didn’t return to the Hawaii State Hospital after being allowed to leave for a period of time, according to information obtained by The Associated Press from police and the state Department of Health.

Randall Saito, the 59-year-old man who left the hospital Sunday, took a taxi to a chartered plane bound for the island of Maui and then boarded another plane to San Jose, California, police said.

He was captured Wednesday in Stockton after authorities got a tip from a taxi driver.

Saito was committed to the hospital outside Honolulu in 1981 after he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting and stabbing death of a woman whose body was found in her car at a mall.

Saito was permitted to roam the hospital grounds with an escort, but he did not have permission to leave the hospital campus without supervision.

It took the hospital at least eight hours to notify law enforcement that Saito was missing. On Wednesday, Dr. Virginia Pressler, director of the Hawaii Department of Health, said an internal inquiry indicated workers inadvertently or intentionally neglected to supervise Saito or notify their supervisors. The apparent failures were spread through several shifts of works, she said. Seven hospital employees have been placed on unpaid leave as the investigation continues.

Sunday’s escape was the latest in a series of similar incidents at the hospital in recent years, the documents obtained by the AP show.

In March 2013, a patient upset about disciplinary actions fled after punching a staffer who was in a vehicle trying to convince the man to return. The man was later apprehended.

In March 2010, a patient attempted to escape by using a bed sheet as a rope and climbing over a perimeter fence.

In November 2015, a patient who had a history of “threatening/assaultive behavior” went unescorted to the cafeteria and didn’t return. The patient was later apprehended.