Community Group Fights to Block Release of Doctor’s Killer : Protest: Steve Larsen is no longer a paranoid schizophrenic, officials say, but some fearful Escondido citizens say 4 1/2 years is too soon to tell.

When Steve Larsen stalked angrily into the Escondido offices of Dr. Craig Blundell on July 28, 1986, demanding to see the internist, brushing past office workers who tried to turn him away and shooting the doctor to death, no one doubted that the lanky killer was crazy.

Now, some of the same Escondido citizens who formed that opinion in the wake of the murder of the popular young doctor are wondering if Steve Larsen is now sane and are fearing his return.

A group, calling itself Concerned Citizens for Community Safety, has mounted an effective protest against recommendations of state and local mental health experts to release the 35-year-old former dentist and petrochemical engineer from Patton State Hospital and return him to San Diego after less than four years of treatment.

Larsen, in a plea bargain, pleaded guilty to first degree-murder and was found not guilty by reason of insanity by a judge who based his ruling on the opinions of the mental health experts who had examined him.

He was ordered committed to Patton State Hospital for an indeterminate term until he was pronounced cured or for a 27-year period--the sentence he would have received for the crime if he had been found sane at the time.

The final decision on whether Larsen will be allowed to return to a San Diego County conditional-release program will come next month from Superior Court Judge Jesus Rodriquez.

The Concerned Citizens group has sent out flyers, urging Escondido residents to join in the effort to keep the confessed killer institutionalized by writing letters or telephoning judges, state legislators and the governor to protest what they consider the early release of a dangerous man.

Michael McGlinn, attorney for Larsen, is concerned about the movement and wonders who is behind the effort that has resulted in at least 16 letters to one judge listed on the flyer, letters to newspapers and calls of protest.

“This is just the normal operation of the system,” McGlinn said. He pointed out that Larsen “has been under daily observation” by Patton State Hospital psychiatrists and psychiatric social workers for nearly four years.

“Over the years, they have tracked his progress and now agree that Steve Larsen is no threat to anyone,” McGlinn said. “He bears no malice against anyone, and he is very sorry for what he did.

“I assume there is some element of revenge in this movement,” he said of the Concerned Citizens activities.

Two years ago, when Larsen sought to obtain his release into a Los Angeles conditional-release program, he was turned down by both state hospital doctors and by the Los Angeles program directors. This time, a Patton medical panel pronounced Larsen cured, or in more precise terms, “no longer a danger to himself or to others.”

But the widow of the victim, since remarried, still has concerns for herself and her two children, as do family friends, some of the medical staff and others who knew Larsen.

A receptionist at Palomar Medical Group offices told investigators that Larsen had come in to see the doctor a few days before the murder and had asked her about Dr. Blundell: “He’s married and has a couple of children, doesn’t he?” She had replied, “That’s right.”

Several psychiatric specialists who examined Larsen after the crime agreed that the man was suffering from delusions that he was the center of a plot by CIA agents, an oil company which had fired him and members of his family.

He believed that all were involved in trying to kill him, to discredit him, and prevent him from obtaining disability for a painful stomach ailment he attributed to job stress.

After his arrest, the medical diagnosis was that Larsen, a former Eagle Scout, an overachiever and a perfectionist, was a paranoid schizophrenic and that the severity of his mental illness would require intensive treatment, most probably for the rest of his life.

The San Diego County district attorney’s office opposes Larsen’s return to a San Diego treatment program, said Bob Madruga, the deputy district attorney handling the case.

“We oppose his release at this time because he proved himself to be extremely violent and unpredictable,” Madruga explained. “He is a first-degree murderer with barely four years of treatment. He was diagnosed as having a severe illness, one which most doctors felt would require lifelong treatment, and now he is going to be in a program where he will have an extensive amount of time out on his own.”

Madruga said that the medical opinions on Larsen’s present condition will weigh heavily in the judge’s decision next month, “but he will also consider another element: the severity of the offense committed. It is possible that the judge could disagree (with recommendations to release Larsen) and say that he felt this was not sufficient time of treatment considering the violent, dangerous crime.”