An Anne Arundel circuit judge refused yesterday to release a man -- once accused of killing his wife and stabbing his girlfriend -- from Clifton T. Perkins Hospital despite pleas from his lawyer and the state attorney general's office.
Although the stabbing charges were dropped last year, Bernard Day, 69, will remain at the maximum-security psychiatric hospital in Jessup indefinitely. "It seems to me that I have a responsibility to make sure that this does not happen again," Judge Eugene M. Lerner said during a hearing. "I am not going to close my eyes. I mean, he killed his wife. If I let this man out on the street and he goes out and cuts someone else, that would be a terrible thing."
Prosecutors dropped the stabbing charges against Mr. Day Nov. 10, 1993, after the victim, Dorthea Gross, failed to show up for the trial. But he was ordered to remain in Perkins -- where he had been since his arrest April 10, 1993 -- because the stabbing violated terms of his 1990 release from the hospital, which specified that he stay out of trouble.
On Feb. 2, 1987, Mr. Day was found not criminally responsible in the shooting death of his wife, Shirley Day.
Her body was found May 8, 1984, in a neighbor's yard near the family home on East Joyce Lane in Severna Park.
Mr. Day was committed to Perkins, then released in May 1990 after doctors convinced a Circuit Court judge that their patient had healed to a point where it would be "counterproductive" to keep him hospitalized.
Three years later, Mr. Day was charged with assault with intent to murder in the stabbing of Ms. Gross during an argument at her house in the first block of McKinsey Road.
Alan Kreshtool, Mr. Day's lawyer, said his client stabbed Ms. Gross in self-defense. According to Mr. Day's version of the argument, Ms. Gross, 31, told Mr. Day she didn't want to see him any more.
When Mr. Day went to get his clothes from a second-floor bedroom, she followed him with a kitchen knife, threatening to cut his groin and making slashing motions, Mr. Kreshtool said.
His client grabbed the knife from her, and she cut her fingers when she tried to get it back, Mr. Kreshtool said.
Both were outpatients of Omni House, a mental health program in Glen Burnie.
Mr. Kreshtool and Leslie Steinberg, an assistant attorney general prosecuting the case, both asked Judge Lerner to release Mr. Day to Omni House, where he would be required to continue taking medication, attend regular sessions with a psychiatrist and go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
"We believe these conditions imposed by the hospital will provide that Mr. Day would not pose a danger," she said.