Patient to Be Charged With Murder : Ventura: The drifter who walked away from the medical center could face the death penalty in the fatal stabbing of a 90-year-old woman. She is buried amid pleas for better security.

A 25-year-old drifter who walked away from the Ventura County Medical Center last week will be charged with first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of a 90-year-old Ventura woman, Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury announced Thursday.

The decision came as friends and relatives of Velasta Johnson gathered at a quiet Catholic funeral service for the woman whose death has fueled an outpouring of criticism on security at the medical center and the adjacent county mental hospital.

Bradbury said he plans to file a first-degree murder charge with special circumstances of burglary against Kevin Jon Kolodziej. He could face the death penalty if convicted of killing the woman during a burglary attempt at her house.

Looking confused and disheveled, Kolodziej appeared in Ventura County Municipal Court Thursday afternoon. His arraignment was delayed two weeks so his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Steve Lipson, could have more time to review the case.

Since Johnson was found dead at her home on Agnus Drive last Friday, family members and neighbors have made a bitter plea for officials at the county medical center and mental hospital to upgrade security and stop people from wandering away.

They say they often see mentally ill people clad in hospital pajamas scuffling through the neighborhood.

Kolodziej was in the medical center undergoing treatment for four or five stab wounds, which doctors believed were self-inflicted. During his stay at the facility, nurses had placed him in restraints because he became combative.

He was examined at least three times by a psychiatrist and was scheduled to be detained for psychiatric observation at the mental hospital when he broke through restraints and walked out of the medical center.

During the funeral service at Our Lady of the Assumption Church, Msgr. Donal Mulcahy echoed the call for increased security.

“We all hope and pray that a way can be found that those who are emotionally and mentally disturbed can be more securely detained in the institutions where they are being treated,” Mulcahy told the gathering of about 60 people. “That way the elderly as well as the schoolchildren . . . can enjoy greater security, protection and peace.”

He called Johnson’s killing an act of senseless violence.

“Anyone who has lived for 90 years as a religious, law-abiding citizen has the right to expect that the final chapter of life could be lived in security, tranquillity and peace,” Mulcahy said. “But for Velasta, that was not to be.

“The tranquillity and peace of her home and her life were shattered by the violent act of a mentally and emotionally disturbed man,” he continued. “It should not have happened.”

But he told the gathering not to place the blame on all mentally ill people.

“We have to find in our hearts compassion for those who are mentally and emotionally disturbed,” Mulcahy said. “They are victims of whatever illness they suffer from.”

Officials for the medical center and the mental hospital say they are searching for a way to keep patients from leaving the hospital.

Randall Feltman, the county’s director of mental health, has said he will increase the staff to keep a closer watch on the 28-bed mental hospital.

But he said it is impossible to keep patients inside the mental facility, a point illustrated Thursday when police said they were still looking for a 28-year-old Newbury Park woman who walked away from the mental hospital Wednesday. Feltman said the hospital, which has 12 doors that cannot be locked, simply was not designed as a secured facility.

Ventura County also lacks a facility for detaining someone for mental-health care and medical care at the same time. Officials say there are no plans to build such a facility because it would be too costly.

Feltman, however, said a more secure hospital for mental treatment is scheduled to be constructed by August, 1993. He said most of the patients undergoing treatment are not dangerous.

But Johnson’s daughter, Jackie Thetford, said she wants officials to correct the problems now. She is leading a neighborhood meeting on Saturday to call for action.

As she left her mother’s funeral service on Thursday, Thetford lashed out at medical center officials.

“I blame them,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I’m very angry. This is just unreal. I’m worried about my dad. I don’t know what he’s going to do without her.”

Velasta and Clyde Johnson, both 90, had been married for 64 years. Mourners at the funeral Thursday said they were a couple who were widely admired.

Friends would see them at church every Sunday, or together outside their home. Every morning, Clyde Johnson prepared a breakfast in bed for his wife.

“Dad just keeps saying, ‘Why did this happen, I took such good care of her,’ ” daughter Sharyn Flanigan said. “And he did.”

With his children at his side supporting him, Clyde Johnson said Thursday that he hopes laws can be changed to give police more freedom to arrest suspicious-appearing people. Minutes before Velasta Johnson was killed, police had talked to a pajama-clad Kolodziej as he walked along Agnus Drive, but they decided not to arrest him because he had not been accused of a crime.

“Something has got to be done with these dang laws,” Johnson said. “We need to be able to use good common sense. If the police were able to take that guy back to where he belonged, all of this could have been avoided.”