Lawsuit argues state erred in evaluation of man convicted in knife attack

A new negligence lawsuit claims the Oregon State Hospital and the state’s Psychiatric Security Review Board failed to follow safety standards in releasing from their oversight a man later convicted of a knife attack in Springfield.

At least two other lawsuits filed across the state in recent years – including another in Lane County — also have claimed that negligence by the state’s psychiatric authorities contributed to either violent attacks or death from a vehicle collision.

The most recent lawsuit states that, in January 2024, Jeffery Collins sustained stab wounds to his chest, testicles, thighs, back and shoulder.

Just before the mid-morning attack, a man had been yelling at Collins from across the street in a Springfield residential neighborhood, and Collins had walked over “to discern what he was trying to say,” the lawsuit states. Collins is seeking up to $10 million in “noneconomic” damages, plus $250,000 to cover direct financial losses related to the attack.

KEZI first reported on the lawsuit, filed June 23 in Lane County Circuit Court. 

Court documents claim that the Oregon State Hospital “decided to roll the dice” in making an “out-of-the-blue determination” about Thomas Murphy, the man who attacked Collins.

In 2017, the state hospital “recommended and advised that Murphy did not meet the administrative standard of a ‘qualifying mental disorder’ for continued jurisdiction and should be released onto the streets with zero oversight,” court documents state.

Murphy previously had been charged with two counts of attempted murder, two counts of second-degree assault and unflawful use of a weapon in connection with a 2014 assault in which “he chased and violently attacked” two women “in public with a pickaxe and a sledgehammer,” the court document states.

He was ordered to stay in a state mental hospital and, in February 2015, found “to be guilty for his criminal conduct ‘except for insanity’ based” on a finding that he had a qualifying mental disorder. A psychologist found him to have schizoaffective disorder, the court document states.

The lawsuit claims that authorities placed Murphy in a secure mental health treatment facility. 

It’s not specified in the court documents when Murphy left the facility. But the lawsuit claims that at the time of the evaluation releasing him from the state’s oversight, “Murphy had not spent adequate time on conditional release with reduced supervision, structure, medication, and treatment, to prove that his symptoms of such mental disorder would not arise again when he was no longer subject to such conditions.”

The lawsuit claims that “standards were not followed in this case,” and that the state psychiatric review board relies on advice from the Oregon State Hospital in its decisions.

For the attack on Collins, Murphy was sentenced to 90 months in prison, according to published reports.

A spokesperson for the Oregon State Hospital declined to comment when asked about the lawsuit, citing federal and state privacy laws.

The attorney representing Collins, Travis Eiva, argued a separate lawsuit in 2019 — also in Lane County — alleging wrongful death and negligence in the case of a man, Spiros Ghenatos, who was killed in an assault that took place in a Eugene apartment.

The 2019 lawsuit claimed that authorities were negligent in granting a multiweek furlough to Ghenatos’ killer, Joshua Jaschke, from a secure mental health treatment facility.

The lawsuit claimed that while the furlough called for Jaschke to stay with his mother, the state Psychiatric Security Review Board and state authorities “never contacted Jaschke’s mother.” About three months before the 2017 fatal attack on Ghenatos — “who had been a friend to Jaschke,” the lawsuit states — Springfield police contacted Jaschke because of his involvement in a public disturbance, but ultimately let him walk free.

This lawsuit resulted in a 2022 jury award of $5.5 million after a finding of negligence by the state and the state Psychiatric Security Review Board. The jury found no negligence by Springfield police or the city of Springfield.

In another case, filed in Malheur County, a judge dismissed claims made by the family of a man killed when the vehicle he was in collided with a vehicle driven by Anthony Montwheeler while fleeing the scene of assault in which he stabbed to death his ex-wife.

The lawsuit claimed that state psychiatric authorities and others should be held liable for negligence in the release of Montwheeler from Oregon State Hospital before the collision and stabbing attack. A dispute over whether records pertaining to Montwheeler should be disclosed to the public ultimately involved then-Gov. Kate Brown.