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A 23-year-old San Carlos man who strangled his roommate at the county mental health hospital in Hillcrest was committed Friday to an indefinite term at a state mental hospital.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Barbara Gamer ordered the term at Patton State Hospital for Gary Allen Marcroft, of Tommy Drive, who was found to have committed voluntary manslaughter while insane.
In a proceeding May 3 before Judge William Low, Marcroft admitted strangling Emerito Mateo, 20, of Chula Vista.
Low said court-appointed psychiatrists unanimously agreed that Marcroft suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.
Marcroft was placed in a room with Mateo at the Hillcrest branch of CMH after he was discovered by joggers wandering nude at Cowles Mountain.
Marcroft could spend the rest of his life at Patton. To be released, he would have to prove to a judge or jury that he has regained his sanity.
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