Man Held in Strangulation of Psychiatric Facility Roommate

A 23-year-old mental patient was held in the County Jail Monday on suspicion of strangling his roommate at the county’s Acute Psychiatric Facility for Adults in Hillcrest.

Gary Allan Marcroft of San Carlos was being held without bail in the death of Emerito Cabel Mateo, 20, of Chula Vista, San Diego homicide Lt. Paul Ybarrondo said.

Deputy Coroner Dan Matticks said he believed Mateo died early Monday after being strangled while he slept. He said face and head wounds indicated that Mateo had also been beaten.

Ybarrondo said Marcroft was seen wandering the halls about 3 a.m. He was uncooperative when nurses confronted him, so they sedated him and put him back to bed, Ybarrondo said.

About 6 a.m., a hospital staff member went into Mateo’s room to take a blood sample from him and found his body covered with a sheet. Ybarrondo said he was not sure whether Mateo was killed before or after the nurses sedated Marcroft.

The two men had been rooming together since Friday, when Marcroft was admitted to the psychiatric hospital, also known as CMH for County Mental Health, said Patrick Stalnaker, an information officer for the facility. Mateo admitted himself to the hospital Dec. 16.

Stalnaker said hospital officials believe the slaying was the first at any San Diego County mental health facility.

However, there have been incidents at the 92-bed hospital in which patients attacked other patients or hospital staff members, sometimes injuring them severely.

Protest in 1981

In November, 1981, more than half of the nurses and nurses’ aides at the hospital stayed home to protest what they said were unsafe conditions at the hospital. They claimed that staff members had been scratched and hit by patients and accused hospital officials of failing to hire enough staff members to control violent patients.

Stalnaker said Monday that although there are still isolated incidents of violence, he believes the hospital is “as reasonably safe as a facility can be.”

“Hillcrest is the facility of last resort,” he said. “We get the patients that no one else wants. We train our staff and we do the best we can with it.”