Randall Saito, a 59-year-old psychiatric hospital patient in Hawaii, escaped the hospital on Sunday morning and flew to San Jose, California, triggering multi-states investigations to apprehend him. [Courtesy of San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office]
Randall Toshio Saito, a 59-year-old convict who was dubbed as a "violent psychopath" and "classic serial killer" by media, escaped his psychiatric hospital located outside of Honolulu, Hawaii on Sunday.
He simply walked out of the hospital and hailed a cab heading to a chartered plane flying to the Island of Maui. He then transferred to a different plane heading to San Jose, California. It is currently unknown how he was able to board a chartered plane.
The psychiatric hospital employees were not aware of his escape until hours after he left. It notified the local authorities eight hours after his disappearance, delaying the investigation. The hospital had over a dozen escapees past eight years, raising public safety issues.
The San Jose authorities were notified by the Honolulu PD and the search for Saito ensued in California.
Saito was laying low in a hotel in Stockton, California. He called Yellow Cab to arrange a ride Tuesday and when a cab driver picked him up, she immediately felt something was off about Saito. The conversation with him made the cab driver intuitively guarded.
That same night when she was watching the local news station on TV, she saw the picture of her strange rider who left "weird" impression on her. In a phone interview with NBC affiliated Hawaii news channel, the cab driver said, "I had a psychopath loose in my cab with me. I feel very blessed that I'm alive."
Saito told the cab driver, who wished to stay anonymous, that he was going to request another ride to go to Las Vegas or Lake Tahoe. He called Yellow Cab to request a ride from the same driver, but she refused. The taxi company dispatched another driver and notified the authorities.
San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office deputies surrounded the cab immediately when it pulled over to a gas station. According to the taxi company general manager, when the cab was "surrounded by police, the only thing the guy in the back said, 'They got me'.
Saito was originally submitted to the Hawaii State Hospital in 1981 when he was acquitted in the killing of Sandra Yamashiro for the reason of insanity. He was described as the "classic serial killer" and "violent psychopath" by the local news media. Saito selected Yamashiro at random and shot her in the face with a pellet gun in 1979. He then stabbed her repeatedly and left her badly mutilated body in her car at a Honolulu shopping mall.
Saito was booked into the San Joaquin County Jail after the arrest and awaiting extradition to Honolulu, Hawaii.
Kwak, Min Jung = abiel@ajunews.com
