(WHAS11) - It's the place that had been housing the most violent, sickest, mentally ill criminals in Kentucky. And now, a WHAS11 news investigation has found, the high security Grauman unit at central state hospital has closed and its patients moved in with other psychiatric patients.
That's got some psychologists, public defenders and Central State's neighbors all concerned.
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State officials say there's been a smooth transition at Central State shutting down the Grauman unit and moving those patients into the main psychiatric hospital. But there are plenty of folks who think it's a bad idea.
Peter Bard, the man who murdered a Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff was once housed there. So was Todd Ice, the teenager who slit the throat of a young girl.
Both are mentally ill and unfit to stand trial. So they were sent to the Grauman unit at Central State hospital in Louisville. Up to 20 patients, not all of them violent, were housed in the high security Grauman unit when it closed in June. All were transferred into the smaller, less secure, unit C of Central State. According to the Grauman unit's former program director, it's a bad idea.
Link-Ulrich worries that taking her clients away from the basketball court and gardens they had in the Grauman unit and squishing them in a smaller space, will cause problems.
State officials say there's been no increase in violence against patients and staff and they're working on more recreation opportunities.
They've also improved security in the main hospital where the criminally insane are now housed. Residents who live across the street from central state were unaware the high security Grauman unit had been closed.
Some still remember 10 years ago when accused murderer Melvin McMurray escaped from Central State. And they're worried it could happen again.
Officials in the Kentucky cabinet for health and family services, which operates Central State, say neither staff shortages nor budget cuts had anything to do with shutting down Grauman and consolidating those patients.
They say there's been a long time plan to integrate the criminally insane into Central State's general population; similar to what's been don at Kentucky's other psychiatric hospitals.
