PORT ANGELES — Bruce Rowan, the former emergency room doctor who was found innocent of murdering his wife by reason of insanity, is still confined to a mental health hospital.
But for how much longer is anyone’s guess.
On April 18, Clallam County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Lauren Erickson confirmed that she received a mental health evaluation of Rowan that was requested by the family members of Deborah Rowan, who was bludgeoned to death by her husband on March 1, 1998.
Family members asked for the evaluation, which was agreed to both by Bruce Rowan and Clallam County Superior Court Judge George Wood in March
The evaluation delayed Rowan’s release from Western State Hospital into his own Tacoma-area apartment, which is where his attorney said Rowan plans to go once Wood approves the next step of his conditional release.
The contents of the report, however, are not yet being made available to the public, and no new court date has been set.
Release in works
Rowan’s conditional release was set into motion in 2002, when hospital treatment staff asked the court that he be allowed to move from a locked ward in the hospital’s less-secure Community Program, and eventually into the community.
The former emergency room doctor at Olympic Medical Center attends church, has completed a college paralegal course and plans to seek volunteer or paid work, said staff at the Steilacoom hospital where he is being held.
Deborah Rowan’s family members say they have never believed that Bruce Rowan was insane, and said in a letter they are “outraged” that Western State is advocating his release “so soon after Mr. Rowan’s heinous act.”
Erickson has said there is nothing the state can do to oppose Rowan’s release, because prosecutors previously argued that Rowan was sane and his move now comes at the unanimous recommendation of state psychiatrists.