Doc wanted low security for killer

Editor’s note: This is the second of a twopart series on the state Psychiatric Security Review Board’s review of Stephen Morgan. The first story, “Panel: Student’s killer to stay in max security,” was published Tuesday.

MIDDLETOWN — The recent state Psychiatric Security Review Board evaluation of the man who killed a Wesleyan University student in 2009 reveals a Yale medical director recommended 18 months ago that Stephen P. Morgan be transferred to a lower-security unit on the Connecticut Valley Hospital campus.

The 38-year-old, who shot and killed 21-year-old senior Johanna Justin-Jinich at the campus bookstore cafe where she worked, was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was committed to CVH’s Whiting Forensic Division maximum security facility for 60 years in February 2012.

Morgan has been an acquittee there for six years.

The PSRB board includes six individuals, including a psychiatrist, attorney and psychologist who approve or deny the request.

Dr. Robert Ostroff, a professor at Yale University and medical director of the mood disorders unit at Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital, was one of many who spoke about Morgan during the more than 70-minute review March 16.

“Ostroff opined that Mr. Morgan’s thinking was organized and goal-directed, and there was no evidence of psychotic symptoms,” according to notes from the mandatory two-year hearing.

“He felt that Mr. Morgan was not a danger to himself or others and did not appear to be gravely disabled,” according to the transcript. “Dr. Ostroff concluded that Mr. Morgan would be appropriate for transfer to a less-restrictive treatment setting, without any changes in his psychotropic medication regimen.”

His request was approved by the hospital’s Forensic Review Committee but was put on hold last January.

“I am angry. Angry at the system that gives insane murderers the possibility of getting away with murder, excused by their medical diagnosis,” Justin-Jinich’s father, Daniel Jinich, said in an email interview. “I am angry that Morgan is not suffering like my family suffers.”

Morgan’s behavior worsened in January 2017 during a period when he self-discontinued his medications. The medical team for that reason decided to temporarily remove him from the Whiting/Dutcher Transition Group he had been attending , the transcript said.

He soon resumed his prescribed Seroquil, an antipsychotic drug.

According to Dr. Shana Berger, at the Whiting unit, staff can give level-four patients like Morgan certain privileges, if they earn them, such as staying up later at night and access to a special room with a television and radio.

“They look forward to things like (an extra food) order-out night,” Berger said. “It’s a break, and it’s exciting for them, and it gives a certain status, as well, among the unit, and I think the staff looks at the level-four patients as kind of models for other patients. We expect them to follow instruction, to go to groups, attend treatment and follow the rules.”

Dr. Daniel Papapietro told the PSRB that he and Morgan talk about the homicide on a “regular and appropriate basis,” referring to Justin-Jinich by her first name.

“We identify the fact that he killed someone. We keep it part of what we talk about. It is not sanitized or minimized in any way for him or for us,” he said during the March review.

Jinich addressed the panel at the conclusion of Morgan’s hearing. He questioned the judgment of CVH staff in light of the recent patient abuse reports.

“When we know of lawsuits alleging and apparently corroborated by video that the staff that is to care for the severely ill patients is physically abusing them and we find out about the arrest of employees and the disciplining of dozens more, we conclude that the Whiting Forensic Unit Hospital has no credibility,” Jinich told the board.

“Why should we trust an organization that is in total disarray? Is the recommendation to move Stephen Morgan to a lower-secured unit in the near future sound? How confident are you in his remission?”

The panel chose to continue Morgan’s confinement. However, shortly afterward, the PSRB received a request from hospital administrators asking for a public hearing about a possible transfer. That should be held sometime this summer, said PSRB Executive Director Ellen Weber Lachance.

If Morgan were ever allowed to enter Dutcher, he still would be restricted in his abilities and movements, but less so, she added. Whiting patients can only leave the grounds for a medical appointment or other reason in the custody of staff.

The hospital, not the PSRB, offers privileges to Dutcher acquittees, such as being able to visit certain areas of the grounds by themselves for up to an hour. They can also leave CVH, but only with staff, for rehabilitative or recreational trips, Lachance said.

“Middletown, you don’t even have a fence to protect your community from what is happening at Connecticut Valley Hospital where the criminally insane can walk around the grounds,” Jinich said in a letter to the Press.

“It is shocking to us at Wesleyan than there would be any consideration of increased privileges for Stephen Morgan. Even his defense attorney at trial recommended that he be confined for 45 years,” Wesleyan President Michael Roth said.

“It seems to me that if you are given the diagnosis of a mental illness, somehow that excuses your behavior. That is wrong,” Jinich said. “If you cannot distinguish right from wrong, as a society, we cannot afford to give you a free pass.

“We all have to face the consequences of our actions here on earth and then when facing the Almighty.”

Morgan