‘Dangerous’ accused killer sparks manhunt after daring escape from psychiatric facility

A MAN who was deemed too mentally ill to face trial for a woman’s brutal murder has sparked a frantic manhunt in the US after he escaped from a mental facility.

Anthony Garver, 28, was one of two patients who fled from the Western State Hospital in Lakewood, Washington on Wednesday.
He was committed to the
psychiatric facility after he was deemed not competent to stand for trial for the 2013 murder of a woman he was accused of stabbing 24 times in a frenzied attack.
His escape from the hospital sparked a desperate two-day search by police who described Garver as “scary and dangerous”, NBC News reports.
Authorities announced on Friday night, local time, they had found Garver covering in a pile of debris in woods near the Washington-Idaho border and had taken him into custody, Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said.
Garver had gone to his parents’ house to get his passport so he could travel to Morocco, Knezovich said.

“Scary and dangerous”: Accused killer Anthony Garver. Picture: Lakewood Police Department via APSource:AP

His mother called police on Thursday after he showed up at her house.
Heavily-armed SWAT officers, police dog units and helicopters then launched a search of woodlands near the house.
Garver was not armed when police dogs tracked down his hiding spot.

He was taken to a hospital with dehydration and was to be then taken to Spokane County Jail.
Garver was accused in 2013 of murdering Phillipa Evans-Lopez soon after the pair were last seen together at a McDonald’s restaurant in Washington in 2013.
The victim’s mother, Kris Evans, said Garver was one of many homeless people who Phillipa would regularly buy breakfast for.

A Spokane County Sheriff's helicopter searches for Anthony Garver, 28, in woodlands in Spokane Valley. Picture: Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review via APSource:AP

Evans said a friend texted her with the news Garver had escaped from the hospital and said she feared for the public’s safety.
“I think that he’s dangerous,” Evans told local news station KHQ.
“The way she died was gruesome and cruel.”
The man who joined Garver on their escape from the Western State Hospital on Wednesday, Mark Alexander Adams, was earlier had been found and taken into custody.
Meanwhile, police are looking for a third patient who also left the hospital on the same day as Garver and Adams.
The man, whose name has not been released, was considered on “unauthorised leave” unrelated to the escape, a facility spokeswoman told NBC News.
The patient left through an unlocked door during an escorted visit outside the premises Wednesday morning.