Former Psychiatric Patient Pleads Not Guilty to Murder

EVERETT (AP) — A man who broke out of Washington state's largest mental hospital last year has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge, after he was found competent to stand trial in the 2013 torture killing of a young woman in Lake Stevens.

KOMO-TV reports that Anthony Garver entered the plea Tuesday in Snohomish County Superior Court.

Garver is accused of tying 20-year-old Phillipa S. Evans to a bed with electrical cords, gagging her and then stabbing her 24 times. He was sent to Western State Hospital, and an initial murder charge was dropped when doctors determined he was too mentally ill to stand trial.

He escaped from the hospital last April and was recaptured days later in Spokane. Last month, a competency hearing determined he had been exaggerating psychiatric symptoms to avoid prosecution, and prosecutors filed another charge last week.

Garver is being held in the Snohomish County jail without bail.