US Marshals Return Escaped Psychiatric Patient To Hawaii

The killer had walked away from the state hospital in November.

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(AP) — U.S. Marshals say they’ve brought a man who escaped from a Hawaii psychiatric hospital back to the islands from California.

Randall Saito faces escape charges stemming from his unauthorized departure from the Hawaii State Hospital in November.

Escaped hospital patient Randall Saito points to a guard as he sits in an inmate visitor's booth at San Joaquin County Jail before a scheduled court hearing in French Camp, Calif., Friday, Nov. 17, 2017. Saito, who escaped from a psychiatric hospital in Hawaii, was captured as the result of a tip from a taxi cab driver. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)
Escaped hospital patient Randall Saito points to a guard as he sits in an inmate visitor’s booth at the San Joaquin County Jail. AP

The agency said in a statement Wednesday that Saito returned to an undisclosed location on Oahu at 2:40 p.m. Agents plan to turn him over to investigators from the state attorney general’s office.

Saito walked out of the Kaneohe hospital and took a taxi to the airport, where he caught a charter plane to Maui. From there, he caught another flight to San Jose. Police arrested him in Stockton, California three days later.

Saito was acquitted of murder by reason of insanity in the 1979 killing of Sandra Yamashiro.

 

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