Saturday, April 1, 2017
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Page 11A
MONTWHEELER: Cost taxpayers millions for hospitalization, housing expenses
Continued from 1A
With her body beside him,
Montwheeler fled. A store clerk
who had witnessed the knifing
called police. A pursuit ensued.
After four miles, Montwheeler
veered head-on into another
vehicle. The collision killed the
other driver, a father of five, and
injured his wife.
Montwheeler, 49, now sits in the
Malheur County Jail, charged with
aggravated murder, assault, and
kidnapping. He may face the death
penalty. He declined an interview.
State officials would not discuss
their handling of Montwheeler
and the decision in December to
free him. Attorney General Ellen
Rosenblum ordered them to turn
over public records sought by the
Malheur Enterprise about their
decision but they are refusing to do
so. The Oregonian/OregonLive is
publishing this story in cooperation
with the Enterprise.
Available records establish that
Montwheeler ran a medical con for
20 years, insisting to a string of state
psychiatrists and psychologists that
he was mentally ill.
He did so to evade state prison,
where he would be sent if he was
convicted of kidnapping his first
wife and son in Baker City in 1996.
Because he was found to be guilty
but insane, he was treated as a
patient instead of a convict.
He later testified that his insanity
gambit allowed him to live off the
public. He cost taxpayers millions
for hospitalization and housing
expenses as he moved around
rural Oregon, working odd jobs
and committing one crime after
another – all while under the state’s
supervision.
Montwheeler’s circumstances
raise troubling questions about the
Oregon State Hospital, the state’s
primary mental hospital, where
criminal defendants are routinely
sent for diagnosis and treatment. At
least eight professionals prescribed
Montwheeler medications or
therapy over the years at the state
hospital.
It wasn’t until last year that
cracks began to emerge in Mont-
wheeler’s scheme. One doctor
in April 2016 concluded he was
mentally ill. Seven months later,
the doctor concluded there was no
medical evidence Montwheeler had
ever been mentally ill.
The case points to a gap in the
legal system. There is no provision
– no consequences — for what to do
with someone who fakes a mental
illness after criminal conduct.
Montwheeler’s case also raises
serious questions about the state
Psychiatric Security Review Board,
which supervises about 500 mentally
ill. The board cites privacy laws in
declining to explain its handling of
individual cases. That keeps crucial
information confidential even
though the board’s decisions affect
community safety.
Montwheeler’s case seemed to
jolt those sitting on the Psychiatric
Security Review Board. Created
in 1977, the board supervises the
treatment of adults and juveniles
who successfully deploy an insanity
defense to criminal charges. Indi-
viduals are discharged from board
control at the end of their term,
when they have no mental illness
or are no longer a threat. The 10
board members are appointed by
the governor.
The board gathered Dec. 7 to
consider a hospital staff recom-
mendation to release Montwheeler.
Board members Kate Lieber,
John Swetnam and Trisha Elmer
listened to witnesses, including
Montwheeler, spin out his tale of
trickery.
Lieber, a Portland attorney
serving as the board’s chair in
December, said she was “aghast.”
But more recently, Lieber would
not comment about how Tony
Montwheeler had been set loose on
an unsuspecting public.
———
Father killed mother
Anthony W. Montwheeler’s life
was ripped apart when he was 6.
His parents were divorcing in 1974
when his father took his mother to
Bend for dinner. After a night of
drinking, Wayne Montwheeler shot
his wife, Linnie, in a restaurant
parking lot. With her bleeding
from a chest wound, he loaded her
into his car and drove the 36 miles
back to Prineville, parking outside
an all-night café. He called the
local sheriff to report the shooting,
and then sat in a café booth with
a friend until police arrived and
found Linnie dead.
Tony Montwheeler and his
younger brother had been left with
a babysitter that day. They went to
live with an aunt and uncle from
Halfway.
The father initially raised an
insanity defense but later pleaded
guilty to manslaughter, serving
nearly three years in the Oregon
State Penitentiary. He later moved
out of state and died, according to
relatives.
Jim Hildebrand Jr., a cousin
Oregon State Police photo
Oregon State Police troopers responded to the scene of a wreck January 9 in Ontario. Anthony Mont-
wheeler was arrested at the scene after having stabbed his ex-wife to death, fleeing from police and
crashing head-on into another vehicle and killing the driver.
whose parents took in the
Montwheeler boys, said Tony
Montwheeler joined the Marine
Corps out of high school but was
discharged early because of an
injury.
He then took a job in 1990 as
a corrections officer at the Oregon
State Penitentiary – where his
father had been incarcerated. He
moved to California in 1991 and at
some point married Rosa Carrasco.
The events that led to his insanity
ruse in Oregon started north of San
Diego in spring 1996. In March
of that year, Carrasco’s sister told
police Rosa was missing and she
feared her husband had forced
her to go to Oregon, according to
police reports.
Two days later, Rosa called her
family to say she was in North
Powder, a small town north of
Baker City. She got in touch with
the local police to assure them that
she was fine.
She was indeed with Mont-
wheeler and just a month later he
was holding her at gunpoint in
Baker City.
According to police reports,
Rosa planned to leave her husband
and take their 3-year-old son to
Texas. (They later divorced.) When
Montwheeler learned of her immi-
nent departure, police reported, he
forced his wife into their pickup,
tying her with a strap to the seat-
belt. He then placed his son and his
.22-caliber rifle on the front seat,
police reports say.
Throughout that afternoon,
Montwheeler threatened to kill his
wife and son, police said. After
Rosa freed herself, Montwheeler
holed up in their home with his son,
stepping out at one point to set fire
to the pickup truck.
Police finally talked him into
surrendering, in part by agreeing to
let him share a pizza with his son at
the police station. He was charged
with kidnapping, arson and use of a
dangerous weapon.
A psychiatrist who examined
Montwheeler after his arrest
concluded he could be held respon-
sible for the crimes, according
to testimony last year before the
Security Review Board.
In his own testimony, in
December, Montwheeler described
what happened next.
“The psychiatrist said that I
wasn’t crazy, there was nothing
wrong with me,” he testified. “And
my attorney advised me to keep
that quiet and we’ll try to get you
another psychiatrist.”
After talking to his private
investigator, he said, he saw a
choice: go the state hospital or the
less-friendly confines of prison.
“And all I got to do is make
myself sound like I’m crazy. And
that’s the route I took,” Mont-
wheeler testified.
Other witnesses at the hearing
cited records indicating Mont-
wheeler was “coached” on mental
illness symptoms and had been
provided a reference book about
mental health that described symp-
toms.
Neither his attorney nor the
private investigator on his case
could be found for comment.
At the state hospital, he told
the board, he put on an act for his
first doctor, reporting “that I was
hearing my mother and hearing
people that died when I was in the
Marine Corps and stuff.”
“And all of that was not true?”
his attorney asked.
“Exactly,”
Montwheeler
responded.
What sent Montwheeler to the
hospital was a second opinion
in 1997 by psychologist John
B. Cochran, who, according to
testimony, found Montwheeler
was mentally ill. It’s not clear
who retained Cochran. Two years
ago, Cochran surrendered his state
license while under investigation
for professional misconduct in an
unrelated case. The state licensing
board found that in 2008 he used
obsolete tests and misstated crucial
facts in evaluating whether a
suspect in custody posed a risk to
the community if released.
With Cochran’s report in hand,
a Baker County circuit judge ruled
in late 1997 that Montwheeler was
guilty but insane. He placed Mont-
“I didn’t want to do
seven years in prison
with me being an
ex-corrections officer.
I didn’t want to get
shanked.”
— Tony Montwheeler
wheeler under the supervision of
the Security Review Board for 70
years – nearly three times the usual
commitment for such felonies.
Besides avoiding what was
shaping up to be a seven-year prison
term, Montwheeler later testified
how his con had cost taxpayers. The
government currently pays $18,000
a month for a single patient to stay
in a secure treatment facility.
“I could take and go and work
and I could still stay in the group
home and not have to pay rent or
anything like that,” he testified in
December.
“Room and board?” a board
member asked.
“Room and board,” he answered.
“On the state’s dime?” he was
asked.
“On the state’s dime.”
Officials said a day in the state
hospital costs the public $860 – nine
times the cost of a day in prison.
He even crossed state lines. He
once asked for permission to live in
Idaho, he testified, but was turned
down because he was required
to live in Oregon. He claimed the
Security Review Board worked out
a compromise, treating an Ontario
address as his official residence
while letting him live across the
river in Weiser.
“That’s how it was worked out,”
he said. “I lived like that for many
years.”
The Security Review Board
declined to address the claim, but
records show he did live in Idaho
and ran a business there. Mont-
wheeler repeatedly got into scrapes.
He was accused of auto theft in
Union County in 2003, grand theft
in Idaho in 2004, and reckless
burning in Ontario in 2005. The
Security Review Board returned
him to the hospital briefly in 2003
for evaluation but otherwise left
him in the community.
He married his second wife,
Katie Spring, in 2005 in Prairie
City. They had two children and
later separated before divorcing in
2010.
That same year, he married for
a third time. With his new wife,
Annita Harmon, Montwheeler ran
a scrap metal business in Weiser,
Idaho. A year later, authorities
investigated the couple for stealing
scrap metal. They were indicted
in Grant County and convicted in
2012 of aggravated theft.
Montwheeler was still under the
jurisdiction of the Security Review
Board for the 1996 kidnapping case,
but this time he was incarcerated.
He reported in September 2012 to
the same prison where his father
had been an inmate and where he
had worked as a corrections officer.
The convictions of Montwheeler
and his wife weren’t vacated on
appeal until after he’d finished his
sentence in April 2014.
A month later, the Security
Review Board ordered Mont-
wheeler back to the state hospital.
He tried to get released into
the community in 2015, but said
he didn’t like what the Security
Review Board had planned for him.
The board wanted Montwheeler
to stay in a secure facility. Mont-
wheeler wanted to live without
the tight restrictions. To him, it
felt like a step backward from the
comparative freedom of living on
state hospital grounds in a cottage.
“That’s when I had enough of
it,” he said. He told the medical
staff he had no mental illness, that
he had been faking it – malingering
– for 20 years.
“I’ve been using the system,”
Montwheeler testified. “I’m done.”
The staff dug in to evaluate his
claim.
An internal review board
concluded in October 2016 that
he wasn’t mentally ill and hadn’t
shown any signs since he first said
he was hearing voices.
“Since his admission 19 years
ago, Mr. Montwheeler has not
displayed symptoms of mental
disease or defect,” the review
board concluded in recommending
his release.
Dr. Mukesh Mittal, a state
psychiatrist, concluded the same
thing after a meticulous review
of every medical record since
Montwheeler first showed up on
the Security Review Board’s client
list in 1996.
Mittal explained that Mont-
wheeler’s treatment as mentally ill
could be traced back to his “self-re-
porting” in 1996 of hearing voices.
Cochran’s report “formed the
basis of the diagnosis ever since,”
Mittal testified. “And the diagnosis
has been carried over by different
providers that have cared for him
over the last 20 years. However,
that is the only report that I have
found that mentions psychotic
symptoms.”
Cochran said in a brief telephone
interview that he didn’t remember
the case.
State hospital officials would
not make any of the treating
doctors available, citing patient
confidentiality.
An incredulous Security Review
Board member asked another state
psychiatrist, Dr. David Jobe: “Is
it simply that he’s been here all
this time because he continues to
endorse symptoms he lied about
for 20 years?”
“He didn’t endorse any symp-
toms,” Jobe said, meaning he
showed none.
That’s when Hartman, the state
psychologist, testified that Mont-
wheeler was a threat.
Montwheeler’s attorney, Harris
Matarazzo of Portland, read into
the record parts of a state report
about Montwheeler that said “if
unsupervised in the community
it is probable he would engage in
substantially dangerous behavior.”
He said Montwheeler had a person-
ality disorder, not a mental illness.
“To the extent my client may
become dangerous, it’s due to his
personality disorder,” Matarazzo
said. He reminded the board it had
no jurisdiction over people with
personality disorders.
Lieber, the acting board chair
in December, told Montwheeler
he was being discharged. She said,
“I’m just a little aghast” at what
she heard but that he was getting a
second chance.
Montwheeler apologized.
“I didn’t want to do seven years
in prison with me being an ex-cor-
rections officer,” he told Lieber. “I
didn’t want to get shanked.”
Lieber cautioned Montwheeler.
“You can either screw it up or
you can do the right thing,” Lieber
said. “My hope is you’ll do the
right thing. I am sincerely worried
you won’t.”
———
A morning of tragedy
Annita Harmon seemed to be in
good spirits, judging by her Face-
book posts.
Divorced from Tony Mont-
wheeler for 18 months, she was
living with her parents in Weiser
and working as a data clerk at
Dickinson Frozen Foods, one of
the area’s major employers.
As she readied to go to work
the morning of Jan. 9, she traded
messages with the new man in her
life.
“I’ll treat you like a queen!!” he
wrote her.
At 6:03 a.m., Harmon replied:
“Oh babe you already are.”
In less than an hour, she was
dead.
Sometime not long after that last
Facebook message, sheriff’s depu-
ties found Harmon’s car running
and empty in the middle of a road
outside Weiser. Police suspect that
Montwheeler stalked her, ran her
off the road, and forced her into his
pickup truck.
At 6:51 a.m., a clerk inside a
service station convenience store
in Ontario frantically called police.
A man was stabbing a woman in
a pickup truck outside. The killing
held eerie similarities to the murder
of Montwheeler’s own mother.
As police responded, the driver
took off west out of Ontario and
onto a state highway leading to
the countryside. Coming the other
way was David Bates, 38, and his
wife, Jessica, 35, riding together
on their way to work at Ontario’s
hospital.
Pursued by police, the speeding
pickup truck crossed into the
Bates’ path. The impact crushed
the fronts of both vehicles and
sent them spinning off the side of
the highway, coming to a stop 100
yards apart.
David Bates died at the scene.
Police found Annita Harmon’s
body and later determined she had
died of the stab wounds. Mont-
wheeler and Jessica Bates were
hospitalized.
While law enforcement officials
have revealed no motive, relatives
who talked to Montwheeler in the
days before the killing say they
have a good idea what happened.
Jim Hildebrand, the cousin who
grew up with Montwheeler, said
that after leaving the state hospital,
Montwheeler moved in with his
brother in Emmett, Idaho. He told
his cousin that his ex-wife had
opened credit cards using his name
and ran up big debts.
Montwheeler gathered up
records he thought showed fraud
and went to police to press for
prosecution. He posted a photo of
himself outside the sheriff’s office
after filing the report.
“It’s done,” he wrote.
Whether police investigated
couldn’t be immediately estab-
lished.
Montwheeler told another
relative that he had dined with
his ex-wife and she asked that he
drop the charges. The relative said
the dinner was a week before the
murder and Montwheeler described
in the days after growing upset with
his ex-wife’s text messages.
“He’s stable until he’s pushed to
a certain point,” the relative said.
As news emerged of the
crime, the Security Review Board
released little about its dealings
with Montwheeler. Juliet Britton,
the board’s executive director, told
the Malheur Enterprise in January
she couldn’t release any informa-
tion about him.
She subsequently released the
board’s orders regarding Mont-
wheeler and the audio recording
of the December hearing, which
included intimate details about
Montwheeler’s treatment.
Since then, state officials
from the Security Review Board
and Oregon State Hospital have
gone silent, declining to provide
interviews or respond to written
questions about the case.
Britton did acknowledge in
an email last week that the board
has no practice to warn the public
when it discharges a person into the
community.
The 20-year con at the state
hospital did bother Lieber, the
review board member who served
as chair last December.
“I’m assuming someone in
the system might do a forensic
look at this and figure what the
hell happened,” Lieber said at the
hearing.
Meantime,
Montwheeler
has recovered from his injuries.
Taxpayers paid for his care,
including hip replacement surgery
that typically costs $30,000. He is
scheduled to enter his plea April 17
in criminal proceedings that likely
will stretch on for a year or more.
His new attorney has already
signaled Montwheeler will contest
the charges.
His defense?
He was insane.
———
This story is printed with permis-
sion from the Malheur Enterprise.