The family of a Puna man allegedly murdered by an escaped mental patient is suing the state and county, claiming their negligence resulted in the victim’s death.
The civil suit, filed Oct. 20 in Hilo Circuit Court by Honolulu attorneys Michael Green and William Shipley Jr. on behalf of Elizabeth Hall, mother of homicide victim Rory Thompson Wick, and Maya Samuels, mother of Wick’s three minor children, seeks unspecified general, special and punitive damages, plus interest and attorney fees and costs.
The 32-year-old Wick was stabbed to death on Nov. 5, 2013, at his home in Eden Roc subdivision. A high-school friend of Wick’s, David True Seal, was arrested at the scene and charged with the murder.
Seal, then 34 and living in another house on Wick’s property, escaped from Hawaii State Hospital in Kaneohe, Oahu, on Dec. 3, 2009, and was still on the lam when the fatal attack occurred.
Seal was committed to the state mental facility in April 2002 after he was acquitted by reason of insanity for the kidnapping and attempted rape of an 8-year-old girl on Maui.
The lawsuit claims the psychiatric hospital was overcrowded, with an operating capacity of 168 patients but accommodating about 240, and that the majority of patients were committed to the facility by state courts for reasons related to the criminal justice system.
The filing also alleges the facility was under-staffed, lacked proper security measures — including no perimeter fencing — and had a policy of nonconfrontation when dealing with “violent, unstable and combative patients.”
“Rather than risk violent confrontation with patients, or maintaining a security staff whose job it is to handle violent, unstable and combative patients, the policy of the hospital was that staff members were to allow a patient to escape … from the facility rather than attempt to physically restrain or prevent the patient from doing so,” the suit states.
The complaint said hospital staff witnessed as Seal scaled an interior wall and disappeared, “but pursuant to hospital policy they made no effort to prevent him from doing so.” It also alleges “little or no effort was made to recapture” the escapee, “even though Seal was known to hospital officials and law enforcement as a violent criminal offender.”
The suit also claims that on Oct. 2, 2013, the Hawaii Police Department received a Crime Stoppers call with specific information that “Seal was studying martial arts in Hilo.”
“Even with this information, county law enforcement and state of Hawaii public safety officials made no efforts to recapture Seal,” the filing states.
The man who reportedly made the call, Jun Mantupar, told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald on Nov. 6, 2013, he notified the Hilo crime-tip hot line that Seal was taking kendo lessons at Waiakea Recreation Center, wearing a gi embroidered with the name “Swaim,” and police apparently had not followed up on his tip.
The newspaper confirmed Seal had been studying kendo at the county facility under the alias “Serif Swaim” for two years.
The newspaper withheld Mantupar’s identity at his request, but on Dec. 2, 2013, he went public on KITV News, and showed a reporter a screen capture with the call and billing information the television station reported confirmed the call was made.
Police Capt. Robert Wagner of Hilo Criminal Investigation Division told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald on Nov. 12, 2013, he had examined three months of Crime Stoppers logs and found no record of the call. A request by KITV for the logs from Oct. 2, 2013, was denied by the department, which cited state laws relating to personal privacy and criminal investigations.
Seal, who is in custody without bail at Hawaii Community Correctional Center, is undergoing a court-ordered mental examination to determine his fitness for trial. His next scheduled court appearance is at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 17 before Hilo Circuit Judge Glenn Hara.
Several calls to Green seeking comment weren’t returned as of press time.
County Corporation Counsel Molly Stebbins and state Attorney General spokesman Joshua Wisch said Wednesday they hadn’t been served with the lawsuit, and both declined to comment.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.