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Franklin Frye Died in Custody After Serving 45 Years Over a $20 Necklace
Franklin Frye Died in Custody After Serving 45 Years Over a $20 Necklace
But fellow patient, would-be assassin John Hinckley, won release.
Jim McElhatton — Sep 1, 2016 9 AM
On Aug. 24, 1971, attorney James S. Dawson, III, wrote to a worried former client who was locked up at St Elizabeths Hospital amid a rampage that saw 18 mental patients go to jail for setting fires to couches, trashing offices, and smashing windows. ... “I got you acquitted of your charges on the grounds of insanity,” Dawson wrote to Franklin Frye, who was accused of stealing a $20 necklace and wanted to know when he was finally going home. “Cooperate with your doctors and when you get well, you’ll get out,” the lawyer continued.
That was 45 years ago. Since then, thousands of people have been released from what is now a mostly vacant hospital for the mentally ill, as patient population rolls plummeted from more than 4,000 to less than 400. Among those most recently ordered free: St. Elizabeths’ most infamous patient, John Hinckley, Jr., who shot President Reagan in 1981 and was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Scores of others simply walked away. Within months of Frye’s arrival in 1971, The Washington Evening Star reported that more than 100 patients were missing without leave, as hospital officials blamed unlocked doors and disinterested security guards. After a while, the escapees were simply dropped from the patient rolls. ... But not Franklin Frye.
He died of cancer on May 11 after spending virtually his entire adult life inside St Elizabeths, which was transferred from federal to city oversight in the mid-1980s. He was 70 years old. If he had pleaded guilty to the petty theft with which he was charged, he may have spent a few weeks in jail. Unlike inmates who know their sentences, the criminally insane are admitted indefinitely. And under the law, it doesn’t matter much what offense put Frye there in the first place—or that he insisted until the end that he didn’t steal the necklace.
[font size=1]One of the last photos of Franklin Frye
Courtesy of niece Jevon Holmes[/font]
But fellow patient, would-be assassin John Hinckley, won release.
Jim McElhatton — Sep 1, 2016 9 AM
On Aug. 24, 1971, attorney James S. Dawson, III, wrote to a worried former client who was locked up at St Elizabeths Hospital amid a rampage that saw 18 mental patients go to jail for setting fires to couches, trashing offices, and smashing windows. ... “I got you acquitted of your charges on the grounds of insanity,” Dawson wrote to Franklin Frye, who was accused of stealing a $20 necklace and wanted to know when he was finally going home. “Cooperate with your doctors and when you get well, you’ll get out,” the lawyer continued.
That was 45 years ago. Since then, thousands of people have been released from what is now a mostly vacant hospital for the mentally ill, as patient population rolls plummeted from more than 4,000 to less than 400. Among those most recently ordered free: St. Elizabeths’ most infamous patient, John Hinckley, Jr., who shot President Reagan in 1981 and was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Scores of others simply walked away. Within months of Frye’s arrival in 1971, The Washington Evening Star reported that more than 100 patients were missing without leave, as hospital officials blamed unlocked doors and disinterested security guards. After a while, the escapees were simply dropped from the patient rolls. ... But not Franklin Frye.
He died of cancer on May 11 after spending virtually his entire adult life inside St Elizabeths, which was transferred from federal to city oversight in the mid-1980s. He was 70 years old. If he had pleaded guilty to the petty theft with which he was charged, he may have spent a few weeks in jail. Unlike inmates who know their sentences, the criminally insane are admitted indefinitely. And under the law, it doesn’t matter much what offense put Frye there in the first place—or that he insisted until the end that he didn’t steal the necklace.
[font size=1]One of the last photos of Franklin Frye
Courtesy of niece Jevon Holmes[/font]
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