State police are investigating the suspicious death of a patient at Crownsville State Hospital who was found early Sunday in the psychiatric ward.
A member of the medical staff found the body of Soo-Jung Kyung, 36, at 12:20 a.m., said state police spokesman Michael McKelvin. Although there were no immediate signs of injury, the preliminary cause of death is blunt-force trauma to the head, he said.
"But that could mean anything from a fall to being hit with a baseball bat," Mr. McKelvin said.
It may take three to four weeks for the state medical examiner's office to complete tests and determine the official cause and manner of death, Mr. McKelvin said.
Hospital staff members told investigators they last saw Ms. Kyung alive at 11 p.m. Saturday, said Lt. Greg Shipley, another state police spokesman.
Mike Golden, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said hospital officials are cooperating with police and are not taking any additional precautions at the psychiatric facility on Route 178 in Crownsville.
"We have no indication that anything is amiss and we can't assume a crime has been committed if there is no proof," he said.
Mr. Golden said the 245 patients are allowed to roam freely through the hospital. The staff does make regular bed checks, he said. Hospital officials are reviewing the case to determine if it could have been handled differently.
"I wouldn't characterize it as staff careless at this point," Mr. Golden said.
Hospital procedures have come under scrutiny on two other occasions in the past 18 months.
Last year, hospital officials beefed up search methods after the decomposed body of missing patient George F. Berry III, 30, was found July 29 in the woods less than 1 1/2 miles from the hospital. Mr. Berry, who had wandered off hospital grounds, died of heat exhaustion and dehydration after jumping a 5-foot fence. He had been missing 10 days.
Police and hospital staff did not search for Mr. Berry after he left hospital grounds, even though it was one of the hottest days of the year. Advocates for the mentally ill claimed that local police routinely searched for the elderly who wander from nursing homes, while mentally ill patients were left to wander on their own.
Earlier this year, authorities at the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that the director of Crownsville had falsified his resume to qualify for the job. Haroon Ansari resigned in July, and the state has filed suit against him in an effort to get back the money he was paid for the year he was employed there.