Man Escapes Psychiatric Facility, Then Hangs Himself

A man with a history of mental illness broke through a steel door and escaped from a high-security county psychiatric unit Thursday, later hanging himself on the grounds of Cabrillo Middle School in Ventura.

A school janitor found Vance Schafer, 28, hanging from a gutter spout in an isolated corner of the school about 5:30 p.m., police said. A deputy medical examiner said Schafer, who suffered from psychosis, died from asphyxiation.

The patient’s father, Camarillo resident Alfred Schafer, criticized security at the psychiatric facility.

“The county has a responsibility to make sure these places are safe,” said an anguished Schafer, whose son was a patient at Hillmont Psychiatric Center. “If it’s a secure facility, it ought to secure. This whole thing stinks.”

But Ventura County Medical Center officials, who run the center, said security inside was excellent. Details of the escape will be reviewed, they said.

“We have a good record here for patient security,” said Elaine McKee, operations officer for the psychiatric center. “There have been escapes, but it is very, very secure.”

The center was built in 1996 partly in response to a patient, Kevin John Kolodziej, who escaped from a previous facility and fatally stabbed a 90-year-old woman living nearby. Some of the most severely ill and violent patients in the county are housed at the center, health officials say.

Located next to the medical center, it has high brick walls, steel doors, security cameras in some rooms and a nursing staff trained in handling violent outbursts from psychotic patients. Steel doors that can only be opened by computer key cards control access to and from the unit.

In the last year, only one other patient has escaped, McKee said. The previous facility had about four escapes per month, she said.

Schafer, who had not been assessed as dangerous, was waiting near the laundry room on Thursday sometime after 3 p.m., said hospital Administrator Sam Edwards. When the person bringing the laundry opened the door, Schafer made a run for it, knocking over an employee in the process. When Schafer encountered a second door, he hit the handle so hard it broke and the door opened.

“He forced his way out using extraordinary effort,” McKee said.

At that point, the computerized security system in the 43-bed unit registered a door forced open. The police were notified about 3:30 p.m.

A team of behavioral health experts went looking for Schafer and could not find him, according to Ventura police.

Schafer had been tormented by voices in his head, his father said. They made him feel he could read people’s minds and that neighbors were talking about him. The voices could only be stilled by massive doses of medication that took a heavy physical toll, his father said.

He had spent about three weeks inside the center before leaving for five days to stay with his family in Camarillo. But the voices returned.

“We sent him to the hospital because the voices were driving him nuts,” his father said. “He wanted to go.”

Except for those deemed a danger to themselves or others, patients are free to move around the center. On Friday, patients walked around calmly, some with white blankets draped over their shoulders.

Because about 90% of the patients are sent to the center against their wishes, many are constantly plotting their escapes, McKee said.

Last week, a patient scaled a tree in the recreation area and got onto the roof. He was eventually retrieved but Edwards had the tree chopped down.

“They are very innovative,” Edwards said. “Few of them don’t have the potential to escalate violent behavior. They don’t want to be here and they dedicate their full resources to getting out. It’s a potential threat all the time.”

Edwards said that within two weeks a new security system that had been ordered before Schafer’s escape will be in place. The new system will allow employees to wear electronic monitors that allow them to call for emergency help.

Lou Matthews, a member of the Ventura chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, said her son had spent time in the Hillmont unit.

“They went from an open facility to a lock-down facility,” she said. “We thought the new facility would solve all these problems. They certainly should reevaluate the staff and security procedures.”