Killer found after escaping custody at Forensic Psychiatric Hospital

An hour after warning the public that a killer was missing from B.C.'s Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, the 54-year-old man is back in police custody.

Mounties issued a warning Monday afternoon, three days after Terrance Scott Giesbrecht left the facility at 70 Colony Farm Rd. in Coquitlam. Giesbrecht was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant, the RCMP said.

He was last seen Friday, RCMP said in a statement, adding that they believed there's a strong possibility that Giesbrecht has left the region.

They warned anyone who spotted Giesbrecht not to approach him, but to call 911 immediately. Mounties said he could be a danger to himself or others if he wasn't taking his medication.

But just an hour later, the RCMP said he'd been located and was back in police custody. Officers have not said where he was located or by whom.

Giesbrecht was ruled not criminally responsible in the deaths of two men in Fort St. John, B.C. in 2004, due to severe schizophrenia. Following the verdict, he was sent to the Coquitlam hospital for treatment.

The hospital is a secure, 190-bed facility that treats those found unfit to stand trial or not criminally responsible for crimes due to mental illness. Its goal is to restore patients' fitness to attend court proceedings or to reintegrate them gradually and safely into the community, according to the BC Mental Health and Substance Use Services website.

He was permitted to leave the hospital on Sept. 22, 2009, and police issued a public warning when he failed to return. Giesbrecht returned to the hospital two days after his disappearance.

The most recent escape came just three months after a man convicted of killing a teenager walked away from a Fraser Valley prison.

Robert Dezwaan, who is serving a life sentence for the 2001 murder of 16-year-old Cherish Oppenheim, simply walked away from Mission Institution in April. He was tracked down the next day, but his escape raised questions from the public about a system that puts violent offenders in facilities without even fences to stop convicts from leaving.