The Unquiet Departure of J.R. McIlveen
After escaping a hospital ward and surviving a legal tug-of-war over his sanity, a Seattle man makes a sudden, dramatic exit.
J. R. McIlveen, the violent patient who escaped from the Providence hospital strong room Sunday morning and was not retaken owing to legal obstructions brought by a decision of Judge Lichtenburg a short time ago, dismissing a charge of insanity against him, took a sudden departure for Regina, B. C., yesterday afternoon.
About noon he sent a note to the hospital thanking the sisters for favors shown during his stay in the institution, requested that his personal effects be delivered to the bearer, and closed by saying that he should depart immediately for Regina. McIlveen was confined in the county jail a short time before being brought before the court, and during that time attempted an assault on Jailer Munroe. At times he was very violent and would shake the bars of the cage in a furious manner. On one occasion he spat on a person who was passing the door. It is generally known that insanity in his case was not of recent development, but hereditary.
“At times he was very violent and would shake the bars of the cage in a furious manner.”
The 1892 struggle over McIlveen’s involuntary psychiatric hold highlights the era’s murky intersection of law and medical practice. Today, Seattle continues to navigate the complex, often fraught, balance between civil liberties, due process, and the provision of adequate mental health care in the public sphere.
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