San Diego

A jury ruled Monday that a San Diego man is still insane and should not be released from a mental hospital where he was committed for strangling his roommate at county mental hospital in Hillcrest.

After deliberating about an hour and 10 minutes, the San Diego Superior Court jury unanimously ruled against Garland Alan Marcroft, 25, who had petitioned for his release from Patton State Hospital.

Because the proceedings were civil, Marcroft only needed nine votes out of the 12 jurors for release.

Marcroft was found innocent of voluntary manslaughter by reason of insanity last year in the Jan. 14, 1985, death of Emerito Mateo, 20, who shared his room at the Hillcrest hospital.

Marcroft admitted to the jury that he strangled Mateo but testified he did it under a psychotic delusion that Mateo was an angel of the devil. He told jurors he will have to take medication for the rest of his life for his schizophrenia, which was diagnosed as the paranoid type.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian Michaels argued Friday that psychiatrists at Patton and in San Diego felt Marcroft was still insane.

Marcroft can return once a year to try to persuade a jury or a judge to free him. He testified Thursday that he had recovered and was not a danger.

Marcroft was arrested Jan. 11, 1985, while roaming naked on Cowles Mountain, trying to scrape his back on rocks as part of a divine mission to get his blood into the earth. He testified he was given no medication at hospital in the first three days before the slaying occurred.

Dr. John Moffat, a Patton psychiatrist, testified Friday Marcroft developed “resistances to therapy” and was “not in touch with all his feelings.”