Authorities arrested a man in Denver on Thursday who escaped from the state hospital for the criminally insane for the fourth time a day earlier.
Keith Simpson, 52, had off-grounds privileges when he walked away from the Colorado Mental Health Institute of Pueblo on Wednesday, hospital spokeswoman Eunice Wolther said.
During a previous escape, an elderly woman broke her toe in a struggle with Simpson, according to a Pueblo police report.
Arapahoe and Adams counties sent Simpson to the state hospital in 1992 for his fifth commitment after he was found not guilty by reason of insanity for robberies in which he threatened store clerks with a fake plastic hand grenade. Simpson has long said that he faked symptoms of mental illness.
Several of Simpson’s institute psychiatrists dating back to 1983 wrote in numerous reports that Simpson, who was committed following his arrest for two aggravated robberies in 1989, was malingering and had no psychotic symptoms. The reports were made available by the hospital after Simpson signed a release.
“Mr. Simpson admitted to having previously malingered psychotic symptoms to avoid charges under the habitual criminal statutes,” Drs. Todd Poch and Sheila Deitz wrote in a 1996 report to Arapahoe County District Judge John Leopold. “There is evidence he is malingering.”
Simpson was profiled as part of a series of investigative stories by The Denver Post chronicling problems at the state hospital with escapes.
Simpson escaped twice in 1990. The first time, on May 5, he ordered a cab driver to take him to Denver, claiming he had a bomb in a sack.
The second time, on Dec. 11, Simpson escaped from the hospital during a ward dance, shoved a woman out of her car and drove the car through a garage door and into a telephone pole. According to a police report, the woman suffered a broken toe.
In 1992, he was convicted of kidnapping and escape and served two years in a Colorado prison for the crimes. In 2002, he escaped again, Wolther said.
His stay at the hospital has been problematic.
Simpson conned vulnerable patients out of money, gambled, sold drugs and sexually assaulted and beat other patients, according to hospital reports.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-820-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
