Man accused of torture killing escapes psychiatric hospital

SEATTLE -- A man accused of torturing a woman to death but found too mentally ill for trial was on the loose Thursday after crawling out a window in a locked, lower-security unit of a Washington state psychiatric hospital already facing federal scrutiny over safety problems.

Anthony Garver, 28, escaped Wednesday night with Mark Alexander Adams, 58, a patient who had been accused of domestic assault in 2014 and was captured Thursday morning, officials said.

Authorities believe Garver bought a bus ticket from Seattle across the state to Spokane, and officials there are on alert.

Western State Hospital said the men were discovered missing 45 minutes after they last were seen, but police said it took an hour and a half.

There was no immediate way to reconcile the different timelines.

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, Snohomish County assistant prosecutor Craig Matheson said.

Garver, who also has a history of running from authorities, was moved to a lower-security unit of the state's largest psychiatric hospital after a judge said treatment to prepare him to face criminal charges was not working.

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

U.S. regulators repeatedly have cited the facility over safety concerns and threatened to cut millions of dollars in federal funding. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently extended the hospital's deadline for fixing the problems from April 1 to May 3.

A federal judge also has said the hospital has failed to provide timely competency services to mentally ill people charged with crimes.