A psychiatrist not affiliated with Western State Hospital should review the hospital’s recommendation to give Bruce Rowan a “conditional release,” Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Chris Shea said Tuesday.
“I am going to get an independent analysis (of the recommendation),” Shea said.
“I would like to keep him right where he is.”
Shea said the review will likely delay a court hearing to review the recommendation to release Rowan from a locked ward for the criminally insane into an unlocked hospital dormitory and allow him “overnight and daily activities off hospital grounds.”
His doctors said the former Olympic Memorial Hospital emergency room physician has responded well to psychiatric treatment.
Rowan, 38, was sent to the state mental hospital in November 1998 after being acquitted by reason of insanity in the murder of his wife, Deborah.
He used an ax and a baseball bat to bludgeon her to death in their home in a rural area of Port Angeles.
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