Wednesday, December 18, 2024
By Mary Claire Molloy for Mirror Indy.
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the Mirror Indy-Free Press Indiana-Public News Service Collaboration.
Misty Coburn wasn't surprised to learn about allegations of sex abuse at Options Behavioral Health Hospital.
As a nurse, she saw the warning signs everywhere. Staff, who were outnumbered and undertrained, didn't watch patients closely. That amplified danger in the Lawrence mental health facility's mixed gender units, where men and women roomed next to each other. They were forced to keep their doors open - and there was always a fear someone might slip through.
That's why Coburn sounded the alarm in 2022 about a male patient's violent history. During admission he told staff, according to a police report, about spending years in prison for raping an elderly woman in a coma. She died soon after the attack.
The man, Derek Hutchison, was wanted in another county for failing to register as a sex offender. Coburn told her bosses about the warrant, but she said they still kept him at the facility.
"There was a whole argument over whether to call the police," the 51-year-old nurse told Mirror Indy. "I was told we weren't going to get involved."
What happened next continues to haunt Coburn. Staff found Hutchison in the bathroom with a female patient.
Hutchison told nurses they'd had consensual sex, according to a police report. But the woman had severe mental illness. Her...
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