State hospital worker, missing patient held in Nevada
A State Hospital worker and an involuntarily committed patient who left the facility together without permission last week are in custody in Las Vegas, records show.
Michelle Messer, 41, and Cory Chapin, 46, were both listed as fugitives arrested on outof-state warrants in the Clark County, Nev., jail online inmate roster Monday afternoon.
The listing shows they were booked about 7:30 a.m. local time. Messer and Chapin are scheduled to appear before a judge Thursday.
A news release from the State Hospital Police Department states both were found safe. Messer faces a misdemeanor charge of aiding an unauthorized departure of a state hospital patient as well as a felony charge of providing prohibited articles to a patient.
Chapin was being held at the hospital as part of a conditional release program for individuals acquitted of crimes due to mental disease and will return there, the release states.
Chapin was ordered into the State Hospital’s care in 2015 after a Carroll County Circuit Court acquitted him of charges of attempted kidnapping and theft by reason of insanity or mental deficit. He also escaped from state custody while on a 48-hour pass with his father in 2016, according to an order revoking his conditional release. He was found in Las Vegas in October 2017 and extradited to the hospital a month later, records state.
An affidavit shows that Messer, a psychological examiner at the hospital, was questioned about how Chapin got contraband items and ordered to have no contact with him shortly before the pair left last Tuesday.
Messer denied knowledge of a cellphone and vaping
machine that were found in Chapin’s possession, the document states. She was then told to wait in her office for her supervisor to arrive at work. Instead, she went to a unit in the hospital and waited for Chapin to walk by. The two then left together, the affidavit states.
The court document added that there was “great concern for the community safety and the safety of Michelle Messer.” The relationship between Messer and Chapin is unclear.
Messer’s personnel file was released Monday afternoon, after the state Department of Human Services went through the notification process and a 72-hour waiting period, spokesman Marci Manley said.
Documents show that Messer has worked at the State Hospital since 2011 after transferring from the Conway Human Development Center. Her job description at the Little Rock facility included conducting psychological evaluations of patients as well as individual and group therapy sessions.