Widow of Physician Slain by Gunman Protests His Likely Release From Asylum

What do you do when you can’t face tomorrow? You busy yourself with today.

Kay Blundell, widow of a slain Escondido physician, has done just that--creating a dozen tasks aimed at assuring that her husband’s killer does not roam free.

Friday, a San Diego Superior Court judge will decide the time and place of a hearing on whether Steve Larsen, confessed killer of Blundell’s husband, Dr. Craig Blundell, will be released from a Patton State Hospital ward for the criminally insane.

If so, he will be transferred to a halfway house in San Diego, just a few miles from the spot where Larsen shot Dr. Blundell to death while in a psychotic delusion that the doctor was part of a plot to deprive Larsen of his state disability benefits.

Kay Blundell has come out of seclusion to lead a group of Escondido supporters into the courtroom to oppose the release of her husband’s killer. Already, her efforts have produced hundreds of letters and thousands of signatures opposing the 35-year-old Larsen’s release from the institution after just four years of treatment.

“I did not speak out when they put him in the state hospital,” Blundell said of Larsen’s 1987 hearing in which he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder but was found innocent by reason of insanity and ordered to Patton State Hospital for an indefinite stay.

“I could not have made a difference then, but I think I can make a difference now, with the help of a lot of people who have come forward to volunteer their services,” she explained.

“I can’t NOT do what I am doing,” she told a crowd of about 140 attending a public meeting at the Escondido City Hall Tuesday night. “This is real scary for me, but I’m not going to give up.”

Blundell, 41, became disheartened as she listened to the speakers at that public meeting who support keeping her husband’s killer behind bars for a much longer time but think he will probably be released.

Fatigue showed in lines on her face. And, with trembling hands, she took the microphone and exhorted the crowd to sign petitions against Larsen’s release, write letters to the Superior Court judge handling the release, attend the Friday hearing and volunteer to work on getting legislation that would keep an insane killer from being released just 4 1/2 years after the killing.

The speakers who depressed the widow were Deputy Dist. Atty. Bob Madruga, Escondido psychiatrist Dr. Ken Khoury and Dennis Koolhaas, a governmental relations consultant.

Madruga told the crowd that Larsen “sooner or later will be free,” even if the judge rules against his release soon.

If Larsen had not been judged insane when he entered Dr. Blundell’s office and shot the popular physician three or four times, he probably would have had to serve “a minimum of 30 years’ hard time” in state prison for the murder, Madruga said.

Each year, Larsen can petition the court to be released from Patton, the attorney said, and once he is transferred to a conditional release program, or halfway house, he can petition annually for absolute freedom from state supervision.

Psychiatrist Khoury agreed with Madruga that Larsen, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, will probably be released from supervision on recommendation of examining psychiatrists and psychologists.

Khoury said that psychiatrists “can diagnose the mental illness and predict the patient’s behavior at that moment, but we are lousy at predicting what will occur in the future.”

If Larsen is released from supervision and fails to take the medications that are now controlling his brain chemistry and preventing delusional episodes, Khoury said, the odds are 3-to-1 that he will become violent again.

Even if a patient continues under proper medication, research shows that 25% of them have further delusional episodes anyway, the psychiatrist said.

Koolhaas, a former aide to state Sen. William Craven (R-Carlsbad) said that efforts to change state law to require mentally ill felons to serve sentences equal to their crimes, even if they are later judged not to be a danger to themselves or others, have had tough sledding in the Legislature.

According to Koolhaas, state mental health officials say that “there is no mechanism in law today to justify us keeping him hospitalized.”

After the public meeting with its show of citizen support, Kay Blundell felt better.

“I’m tired, very tired,” she said. “I know that alone I can’t make a difference, but with the help of all these wonderful people I think we can have an impact on the system.”

She is fearful, of course, of what might happen to her and her two sons if Larsen is released to a treatment program in San Diego. And she has little faith in the effectiveness of any restrictions that the court might place on Larsen, such as banning him from returning to his hometown of Escondido, where Blundell and her sons still live.

“But, more than that, I fear for everybody,” she said. “I fear for Steve Larsen, and I want him to get the treatment that he needs.

“This is the most challenging thing I have ever tried to do,” Blundell said of her crusade to keep Larsen in custody. She says she would “almost rather clean 100 toilets” than take the spotlight in this fight.

Larsen “has a history of not following medical advice,” she said, pointing to testimony given in a preliminary hearing that Larsen had refused to seek help when he was twice referred to a psychiatrist and a psychologist before the murder in July, 1986.

If Larsen is released, “I don’t feel that anybody’s safe,” Blundell said. “If he could be sent to another county, one with better mental health services and as far away as possible, it might make me feel safer.”

But, if he is returned to San Diego and a conditional release program here, “I fear for my family and I fear for the residents of Escondido,” she said.

Police will not be given a notice of Larsen’s whereabouts, Blundell said. “There will be no way to monitor him. There will be no way to know where he is. It will be a most trying time.”