Neighbors upset about lack of notification after killer's escape

Gary Ligon, 62, had been on the loose 2 days

SAN ANTONIO – People who live in the neighborhoods near the San Antonio State Hospital want to know who dropped the ball when it came to notifying them about the escape of a killer.

Gary Ligon, 62, walked away from the hospital at some point before 10 a.m. Sunday. On Tuesday morning, San Antonio police announced that they had located him in the 8200 block of City Base Landing, some two miles from the hospital.

It’s still unclear where Ligon was for two days, and that has some neighbors concerned.

Ligon was confined to the hospital, a mental health facility, after murdering and dismembering his wife, Becky, in Kerr County in 1989.

"We did not hear anything about this," said Margie Urrea, who lives in a mobile home park on Goliad Road, just down the street from where Ligon was captured. "We have a lot of children and we never know what could've happened to us or, you know, the kids."

Urrea is one of several neighbors who said they received no notification that Ligon was on the loose.

Christine Mann, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health, which oversees the hospital, said the policy following an “unauthorized departure” is for personnel to call local police. She said, in this case, hospital staff did notify San Antonio police. 

According to the San Antonio Police Department’s Public Information Office, a call was received by the department's missing person’s division at 12:43 p.m. Sunday, nearly three hours after Ligon walked away from the facility. It’s unclear what action, if any, police took toward notifying the public.

What's also unknown is whether police were told that Ligon presented a possible danger to the community. Mann said, generally speaking, hospital staff does inform law enforcement officers if the missing patients are aggressive or represent a threat.

Kerr County Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer, who originally tracked down and arrested Ligon after the murder, said this was the second time Ligon escaped from the facility.

Based on San Antonio police records, it appears it’s not too uncommon for patients to wander off from the hospital. Since the beginning of the year, police have received 13 calls for missing persons. In some cases, they received more than one report in the same day.

Mann said in the case of Ligon, staff members were aware of his “unauthorized departure.” They watched him walk away from the hospital. She said staff members are not trained to physically restrain patients, but instead try to verbally convince them not to leave.


About the Author:

Katrina Webber joined KSAT 12 in December 2009. She reports for Good Morning San Antonio. Katrina was born and raised in Queens, NY, but after living in Gulf Coast states for the past decade, she feels right at home in Texas. It's not unusual to find her singing karaoke or leading a song with her church choir when she's not on-air.