Terror and anxiety have turned into relief for 90-year-old Margaret Fine with the arrest of an escaped psychiatric patient who had beat her and later stalked her.
“I was so worried he might find me; now I can at least relax a bit,” said Fine, whom Frank Mahlman assaulted in 2001 and later threatened at her Baltimore County home several times after he left the hospital.
Baltimore City police arrested Mahlman, 50, at 8 a.m. Saturday on Chester Street, police said.
The Examiner first reported on Fine?s anxiety about her former attacker after he “walked away” from Spring Grove mental institution in Catonsville for a third time Oct. 22. Mahlman was committed there in 2001 after he was found “not criminally responsible” for striking Fine in the head with a bag of rocks.
But figures from state health officials show that Mahlman?s escape is not an isolated case.
Since January, 87 psychiatric patients have “walked” out of five state-run institutions in what are called “elopements,” when patients leave a psychiatric hospital for any length of time without permission.
“Even with this number, Maryland is below the national average,” said Eva Jean Smith, spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
“Anyone that would walk away and return five minutes later would be considered an elopement. The numbers could be easily misunderstood.”
The elopement numbers came from these hospitals: Spring Grove Hospital Center, Springfield Hospital Center, Eastern Shore Hospital Center, Upper Shore Community Mental Health Center, Thomas B. Finan Center and Walter P. Carter Center.
State officials would not say how many of the patients who “eloped” had returned, or if any are considered dangerous.
“Our facilities are hospitals, not jails or prisons. The majority of our patients are civil patients, and are not forensic or court-involved,” Smith said.
Spring Grove Superintendent Dr. David Helsel said the number of elopements from his hospital was manageable. “I can say that Spring Grove numbers are well below the national average,” he said.
