Escondido

Steven Alan Larsen of Escondido, a one-time Eagle Scout and dentist who was found innocent by reason of insanity when he shot and killed an Escondido physician in July, was formally committed Wednesday to Patton State Hospital by Vista Superior Court Judge Zalman Scherer.

A panel of doctors from the county’s community mental health agency agreed with previous experts and concluded in a letter to Scherer: “The defendant is still a danger to others and has not recovered his sanity,” said Larsen’s defense attorney, Barton Sheela.

Scherer ordered Larsen, 31, to remain at Patton State Hospital for the criminally insane near San Bernardino until cured of his paranoid schizophrenia, or for 27 years--the length of time he would have been sentenced to prison had he been found sane at the time of the shooting.

If Larsen is not cured by the end of 27 years, the burden will be on state authorities to petition the court that he remain committed to the hospital, Sheela said.

Larsen shot and killed Dr. Craig Blundell because he believed that the physician was deliberately not curing him of a stomach ailment that Blundell in fact had not been able to diagnose, according to psychiatrists who interviewed Larsen and found him insane.

Larsen has been under medication since the shooting and probably will remain medicated for the balance of his life, Sheela has said.