Lax oversight contributed to Saito’s escape and an 11-hour delay in reporting it, the report said. A nearly 1,600-page redacted copy of the report didn't offer any significant details into how Saito was able to escape and fly to California before authorities were notified he was missing. Any reported incidents related to the hospital, patients and staff are taken seriously with appropriate actions in accordance with hospital policies and procedures.”Ī state attorney general’s office investigation found no single employee directly responsible for the escape. The state Department of Health issued a statement in response to Saito's claims: “The safety of patients, workers, and the community is the highest priority at Hawaii State Hospital. “It is a milieu of ineptitude, abuse and malfeasance," he said. He also accused the hospital of being unsafe, alleging that there has been rape, sexual abuse and death there. “It is important that they know I committed no sexual assault nor any desecration to Sandra,” he said. Saito expressed what he said has been on his mind for a long time: “sincere and deepest sorrow” for the Yamashiro family's loss. “Your honor, the irony of having to commit a crime to prove that I was safe is not lost on me.” It was the only way to prove he can function safely in the community, he said.Īfter months of pondering, “I reluctantly decided to walk," he said. “I did not elope from the hospital just to have fun,” he said. He apologized at his sentencing and attempted to explain his actions. Saito, 62, pleaded no contest to escape and identity theft charges in September. When he was arrested in Stockton three days after his escape, he had more than $6,000 in cash and fake Washington state and Illinois driver’s licenses bearing his photos with different names, prosecutors said. Then he took a commercial flight to the Northern California city of San Jose, prosecutors said. He used an alias to arrange the flight and paid $1,445 cash for it, prosecutors said. In November 2017, authorities said Randall Saito walked out of Hawaii State Hospital, where he was sent in 1981 after he was acquitted of murder by reason of insanity in the 1979 killing of Sandra Yamashiro.Īfter leaving the hospital, Saito called a taxi that took him to the airport, where boarded a chartered flight to Maui. HONOLULU - A man who spent decades in a Hawaii psychiatric hospital for killing a woman was sentenced to five years in prison Thursday for escaping from the facility in 2017 and flying to California before he was captured.
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