Posted on 09/20/2009 8:03:19 PM PDT by Libloather
Insane killer caught after 3 days on loose in Wash
An insane killer who slipped away from the staff of a mental institution on a field trip Thursday to the Spokane County Interstate Fair was recaptured Sunday without injury more than 180 miles away in south-central Washington state.
With a helicopter overhead and dozens of federal, state and local law enforcement officers swarming around Goldendale, Phillip Arnold Paul, 47, seemed ready to surrender when he walked out to the Goldendale-Bickleton road about 22 miles east of town shortly after 4 p.m., just as search personnel arrived at the scene, Klickitat County Sheriff Rick McComas told The Associated Press.
"He came out of the brush, onto the roadway, as law enforcement officers were going by," McComas said."His intent was to voluntarily give himself up because he knew we were going to find him."
But Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie D. Knezovich said Paul had just tried to thumb a ride from an area resident who alerted authorities. Knezovich said the fugitive seemed to be trying to remain on the loose.
Still, he said, Paul was arrested without incident:"As far as I know, he was cooperative."
Based on information from a confidential informant, investigators believe Paul hitched a ride from Spokane to the Goldendale area, Knezovich said. The focus of the search shifted Sunday when authorities learned precisely where he got out of the car, he said. He wouldn't comment further on the ride or why Paul wound up in Klickitat County.
Knezovich said one of those involved in the arrest, Spokane County sheriff's Detective Roger W. Knight, also nabbed Paul after he gave Eastern State Hospital personnel the slip in 1991 during a field trip in Medical Lake, where the mental institution is located.
Following that arrest, Paul knocked Knight unconscious in the jail booking area, separating his shoulder, and was convicted of first-degree escape and second-degree assault.
Paul was committed after he was diagnosed as schizophrenic and acquitted by reason of insanity in the slaying of an elderly woman in Sunnyside in 1987. He soaked her body in gasoline to throw off search dogs.
McComas said Paul would be taken to Yakima following a brief checkup by medics in Goldendale. He is expected to appear in Yakima County Superior Court on a warrant stemming from the initial murder case before being returned to Eastern State.
"This has been one of the largest manhunts in this region for many years," Knezovich said."A great deal of teamwork went into the capture of Mr. Paul."
Knezovich said he met with Spokane-area residents Saturday to hear their concerns about the case.
"There was a lot of fear in the community, people locking their windows," he said."I want people in Spokane County to know that tonight they can sleep in peace.
Susan N. Dreyfus, secretary of the Department of Social and Health Services, issued a statement praising those involved in the recapture.
"We are committed to finding out how and why this happened, why there was an unacceptable (two-hour) delay in notifying local law enforcement of his escape, and how potentially dangerous patients were brought to such a public venue with the reported staffing ratios," Dreyfus added.
Shortly after the escape, Dreyfus ordered a halt to all field trips for"forensic patients" _ those committed for treatment as a result of criminal proceedings _ at all three of the state's mental institutions.
By early Sunday, 50 to 60 federal, state and Spokane-area law enforcement personnel had been shifted from the Spokane area near the Idaho border to Goldendale, the Klickitat County seat, about 145 miles southeast of Seattle and 185 miles southwest of Spokane.
Previously, authorities said they believed Paul would head for his family home in Sunnyside, about 65 road miles east of Goldendale and about 180 road miles south-southwest of Spokane. But Reagan said investigators have had no indication that he passed through Sunnyside.
Knezovich expressed dismay that Paul aroused no suspicion when he left the mental institution with a backpack loaded with clothing, food, an electric guitar and $50 from a Social Security check."It appears that Mr. Paul had planned this for quite some time," he said.
The field trip to the fair, which included 30 other patients, is an annual event that Paul easily could have anticipated, Reagan said.
Jim Stevenson, a spokesman for the state Department of Social and Health Services, said Paul received an injection designed to maintain his mental stability for about two weeks on Wednesday. Only at the end of that period would he have needed another dose to avoid the potential for a serious deterioration of his mental condition, Stevenson said.
(Should I mention Rambo?)
nah. He’s probably on the voter roll in 5 states.
I think he writes a column at the Huff Po.
I don't care where you live, you'd better lock those windows.
Liberals can be found in any neighborhood, city, country, it doesn't matter, they are there and they are dangerous.
Horse hockey; there are far more dangerous people still on the loose than this fellow.
Anyhow, what's with the county names. First Clackamas and now Klickitat. It even sounds like a cuckoo's nest kind of place.
Most people in a modern nut house would not be lefty enough for HuffPo.
They let this insance killer out to go to the County Fair.
Yes. It seems the idiots in liberal Washington have been taking lessons from the Michael Dukakis School of Inept Political Blunders.
The names come from the local Indian tribes. Other names: Spokane, Kahlotus, Seattle, Tacoma.
He went out with a backpack crammed with food and clothes, too. And oddly enough (wouldn’t it be rather bulky in a backpack? but it could easily be pawned) a guitar.
Yeah I’m aware of that. It just sounds so apropos to the context.
Well, let's see, so far he's escaped from 2 'field trips' - so I guess everyones safe until the next field trip.
Here's a picture of him in 2008 at which time he was released to a halfway house, during which time he impregnated a woman and now has a two year old son, thankfully on behalf of the State of Washington:
Let us remember he is a criminally insane murderer.
This is one of the conundrums of modern medicine. They can give him pills or injections that will temporarily hold his demons at bay, and during that time he is no more dangerous than anybody else — but the doctors have nothing to cure him.
Yes, this is like playing with a grenade with pin pulled. May have a long fuse, but a fuse it definitely has.
future mental health czar.
This is the part I love:
“Knezovich expressed dismay that Paul aroused no suspicion when he left the mental institution with
....$50 from a Social Security check........”
Oh, and Washington state is one of the most difficult places to get an acute psychiatric illness taken care of in the first place. A doctor does not suffice to get the person taken by a hospital. It has to be done on the order of one of a small handful of social workers.
Disability
What genius thought a field trip to the fair for the criminally insane was a good idea?! Maybe they should run for Congress or President.
And what does Cook County sound like?
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Fleeing Fair Field Trip Felon Found would have been my title.
One would think one escape attempt would make him ineligible for further field trips, but maybe they didn’t want to damage his self esteem.//sarc//
Crook County, not Cuckoo County :-)
Legally a NGRI isn’t a “felon.”
Paul, 47, who was found insane in the brutal murder of a Sunnyside activist in 1987
Paul left little clothing behind in his Eastern hospital room and was carrying a backpack during the field trip, an annual event Paul could easily have anticipated. He had $50 in his pocket from a Social Security check.
The head of the state Department of Social and Health Service has promised an investigation.
Paul, diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, was committed for the 1987 strangling and slashing of 78-year-old Ruth Mottley, in Sunnyside.
Paul, who was 25 at the time, snapped her 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 the voices in his head told him Mottley was a witch who was casting spells on him.
Mottley was well regarded in Sunnyside. She was a retired educator who founded the town’s historical society and appeared in a list of Washington’s 100 most influential women, according to news files.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/sep/20/insane-killer-captured-goldendale-wash/
Hal Wilson, the hospital’s CEO, said last week that Paul was not considered “extremely dangerous” and that a treatment team had approved him for the trip to the fair. He said Paul had been “a fairly model patient.”
He could not explain the delay in reporting the escape, and referred to a state investigation ordered by Susan Dreyfus, head of the Department of Social and Health Services.
Davis took issue with the description of Paul as a model patient. He said several union members were surprised Paul was approved to attend the fair.
Since the 1990s, Paul has been granted limited releases into the community and then had them revoked. Since 2005, he was twice released to The Carlyle, an assisted living facility in downtown Spokane, and then ordered back to Eastern for refusing to take his medication.
Paul has a MySpace page where he posted photographs and songs that he has written and recorded about his schizophrenia and treatment, including references to Eastern as the “Nut Hut” and “palace of the pill.” A brief biography on the page refers to the 1987 killing as a “four-second mistake.”
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/sep/20/insane-killer-captured-goldendale-wash/
Phillip Paul’s MySpace page
http://www.myspace.com/phillywillyandthehillbillies
About Philly Willy and the Hillbillies
For as long as he could remember Phil Paul’s greatest dream was to be successful in wrestling. However, after giving his life to the sport and accomplishing international success at the age of 25, Phil had to suddenly surrender further aspirations, only to lay down his life again …this time to a higher priority, but to never perform public wrestling again. A four second mistake took Phil on a path no one could have imagined. A person lay dead at his feet. Phil called 911. At the scene, Psychotic symptoms were noted over the incident that landed Phil in the psychiatric ward of the Washington State Mental Institution.
Ironically, years later, after suffering through many experimental therapies, Phil felt enough release to pick up the remnants of his dream in the expressive form music would allow. A sound was birthed. Somehow Phil painstakingly managed to bottle that sound and boot-leg the contraband recordings. Irregardless of how he was able to do such a feat in his situation, this first smuggled album shoots straight to the heart of his passion. A new mental culture is born from the chaotic ashes of a chemically induced insanity. A culture of refined madness is brewed with all the bizarre side effects just the appetizer. Enter Phil’s world, the horrific netherworld of chemical lobotomies and forced inject-table toxic cocktails that help finance the cutting edge of today’s psychotic medications. Federally approved injectable medications, time released by biodegradable polymers have somehow amazingly spawned a new voice of hope. When Phil today is asked if he’s “nuts” for taking on such a battle, he answers with a profound YES…with full assurance he’s completely certified for the last 22 years.
MORE...
It took longer than that to bury the deceased lady in her garden.
More like “Disability”.
I’ve got an able-bodied childhood friend who’s been on it for decades. His father must have thought he was doing his son a great favor by getting him on it. Only problem is it destroyed any incentive to get a job and make something of himself. Lives in a group home and has a little spending money but nothing else and never will.
That page looks like it’s kept by someone who isn’t very knowledgeable. Maybe a friend of Paul’s but not Paul himself. For one thing, there are dozens of neuroleptics on the market and all work well in blocking the symptoms of schizophrenia.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Wait..he was released in 2008...impregnated a woman and now has a 2 year old son? That doesn’t compute.
WA ping
ROTFL!!!
he was allowed to go to a half way house, I believe, in 2007 and has a two year old son — read the link provided. the pic was from 2008.
State DSHS Secretary Susan Dreyfus appeared at a press conference Friday where she assured the public that she is quite “concerned” and that a thorough investigation is under way.
Pardon my skepticism, but the system has been blowing it with this ticking time bomb for more than 20 years.
I know. I first railed about Paul in 1993, when I learned that Eastern State officials were letting him come into Spokane twice a week for art classes.
“I’m so angry,” Helen Mottley told me at the time. “Nobody should go through what my family had to go through.”
Paul killed Helen’s mom, Ruth, on April 25, 1987.
Ruth Mottley was a beloved figure in Sunnyside. The retired educator founded the town’s historical society. She appeared in a list of Washington’s 100 most influential women.
Paul is in a rare league of his own, too. When he’s off his meds and in a full delusional state, Paul’s like the lead in a Wes Craven horror flick.
“He’s the only paranoid schizophrenic — I’ve seen hundreds, maybe thousands of them — that frightened me,” psychiatrist Frank Hardy testified in a 1988 deposition.
The voices in Paul’s head told him Mottley was a witch. So he took care of her in a violent and gruesome way.
http://www.individual.com/story.php?story=107128989
Paul, a former wrestler, crept into Mottley’s home. He all but tore her head off with his bare hands.
Oh, yeah. This guy is definitely “field trip to the fair” material.
In Saturday’s Spokesman-Review, Hal Wilson, Eastern State Hospital’s CEO, said, “We don’t consider him (Paul) extremely dangerous.”
Thanks, Hal. Tell it to Ruth Mottley.
Paul strangled 78-year-old Ruth Mottley of Sunnyside in 1987 and buried her outside her home. He told investigators that voices in his head lead him to believe the victim was a witch who needed to die. Paul was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed to Eastern State Hospital.
Deputies say Paul is schizophrenic and classified as criminally insane. He was hospitalized at Eastern following the murder of Ruth Mottley, released for a short time and then re-committed. Paul also has a criminal background in Spokane County, as well as a history of escape and assault.
“This has been one of the largest manhunts in this region for many years,” Knezovich said.
So, this man-hunt went on for years?
Jeez, doesn’t anybody speak English these days?
Phillip Arnold Paul’s criminal history began in April 1987. The gasoline-soaked body of Ruth Mottley, 78, is found in a shallow grave near her Lower Yakima Valley home, her throat slit and neck broken. Phillip Arnold Paul, who lived nearby, told deputies “voices” in his head instructed him to “kill the witch on Emerald Road.”
In July 1987 he is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and found not guilty by reason of insanity in Ruth Mottley’s murder and ordered held indefinitely at a “state mental institution for the criminally insane.”
Between the years 1992-2000 Paul began a gradual return to society. He enrolled in classes, held a part-time job and was allowed to spend two weeks at a time at home with his family.
In October 2000 Paul begins to exhibit threatening and delusional behavior. He tells counselors of someone he thinks is a “witch.” He is sent back to Eastern State Hospital for the next 5 years.
In October 2005 he is again conditionally released and begins dating a woman who bore him a son in 2006. He stops taking his medication and is again sent back to hospital for a year. After his release his behavior becomes increasingly defiant and he is finally hospitalized again in Jan. 2009.
Thank you. How about “Fleeing Fair Field Trip ‘Forensic’ Fiend Found”?
I can almost smell the ACLU in the background here. Wonder what litigation has been going on behind the scenes. This chap sounds way too risky to be let out of anyone’s sight.
Wonder if they’re going to let him go trick-or-treating next month.
Field trips for the convicted criminally insane...
... is criminally insane.
LOL, I love how this guy is unfailing described as an “insane killer”. It reminds me of the “coup plotters” during the fall of the Soviet Union.
There are so many more more insane killers out there, can we just call them all that now?
Both Clackamas and Klickitat are Native American tribal names and Klickitat is also the name of a river in Washington State - near Goldendale where the fugitive was located.
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