Norristown State Hospital

It began with a former employee shooting his way into a Norristown State Hospital administration building. It ended, almost exactly two days later, with him cowering amid the bodies of the two female nursing supervisors whom police said he had just shot. When it was over, one of the women was dead, the other was wounded, Denis P. Czajkowski, 40, of Collegeville, was facing murder charges, and authorities were facing questions about what they did and did not do during last week's 46-hour hostage standoff.

Since March 13, when a Philadelphia judge ordered Leo Bullman transferred from a locked criminal psychiatric unit at Norristown State Hospital to a less-restrictive civil-commitment ward, state officials have insisted they have had no beds available. On Wednesday - facing a contempt-of-court hearing with Municipal Court Judge Karen Y. Simmons promising a $1,000-a-day fine for every day Bullman, 68, remained at Norristown's Building 51 - a civil-side bed materialized. "Leo has been moved," said Luna Pattela, a lawyer with the mental health unit of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, which has represented Bullman in a pending assault charge from a neighborhood dispute.

Norristown State Hospital, which failed a federal inspection last fall because it was understaffed, has passed a second inspection and is now fully in compliance with federal standards, a state Department of Public Welfare official said yesterday. "We have hired about 25 additional nursing staff, including registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and psychiatric aides," said Matt Jones, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Welfare. Jones said the hospital was continuing to "recruit staff in all three areas" so that it would have nursing staff in reserve.

Francis Hanley calls it the Green Hamburger Story. And his version of it - which is challenged by the administration at Norristown State Hospital, where it supposedly took place - goes like this: In 1985, a Fourth of July picnic was to be held for the mental patients in Building 9 at the hospital. Hamburger meat was sent over from the institution's kitchen for the event. But when it arrived, nurses and aides reported, the meat appeared green and spoiled. They called the office of Dorothy M. Cleaver, superintendent of the hospital, to complain.

Sylvia Seegrist went to jail for life yesterday after psychiatrists ruled they could do nothing more to treat her mental illness. Seegrist, 27, was transferred from Norristown State Hospital to the State Correctional Institution at Muncy in Lycoming County to begin serving three consecutive life sentences for her 1985 shooting spree at the Springfield Mall, said prison spokeswoman Anne Forgacs. State law says Seegrist will not be eligible for parole unless the governor commutes her sentence.

When the State Hospital for the Insane of the Southeastern District of Pennsylvania, now known as Norristown State Hospital, opened its doors in 1880, both its physical plant and its treatment program were on the cutting edge of mental health in this country. Previously, the indigent mentally ill of seven Southeastern Pennsylvania counties had been warehoused in the various county almshouses. There, many lived in squalor and neglect. Information in the library of the Historical Society of Montgomery County reveals that in 1876, an act of the General Assembly directed that the governor appoint a commission to select a site and build a hospital for the insane in the region.

The former president of a union representing workers at Norristown State Hospital has been charged with stealing more than $22,000 of its funds. Montgomery County prosecutors say Thomas Lee Wicker, who headed American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2348, withdrew thousands of dollars from the union's account through ATMs and checks made out to local vendors for food, gas, and other expenses he claimed were incurred on union...

Vacant buildings at Norristown State Hospital could be reclaimed to treat the wounded in the event of a terrorism attack, state and county officials said yesterday. Joseph DiMino, director of the Montgomery County Health Department, wants to refurbish an unused medical building at the hospital to absorb a potential surge in casualties caused by bioterrorism or other attack. He has yet to persuade anyone to pay for the estimated $1 million that the work would require. Norristown's proximity to transportation hubs would make it a perfect site to treat less-serious injuries, DiMino said.

He had been physically attacked twice, he said. His phone rang with threatening phone calls for two years. And someone had even pulled the vehicle identification number off his car. Denis Czajkowski, the ex-Norristown State Hospital nurse who killed one former supervisor and wounded another during a two-day hostage standoff in June 1999, yesterday took the stand to describe a conspiracy against him that he said made him fear for his life....

A cabdriver whose taxi police said was stolen by a man who walked away from an unlocked ward at Norristown State Hospital earlier this month testified yesterday that he was dragged for several feet as he tried to stop the carjacking. Antonio Ruiz testified at a preliminary hearing that Brian Kerrick, 19, moved from the back seat to the driver seat after Ruiz stopped at a pizza shop to ask directions to the state hospital. Kerrick, who had been missing from the hospital since Dec. 31, had hailed Ruiz at 16th Street and JFK Boulevard in Philadelphia for a ride back at 5:15 p.m. Jan. 10. Following the district court hearing, Kerrick was held for trial in Montgomery County Court on charges of robbery of a motor vehicle, theft and unauthorized use of an automobile.

Since March 13, when a Philadelphia judge ordered Leo Bullman transferred from a locked criminal psychiatric unit at Norristown State Hospital to a less-restrictive civil-commitment ward, state officials have insisted they have had no beds available. On Wednesday - facing a contempt-of-court hearing with Municipal Court Judge Karen Y. Simmons promising a $1,000-a-day fine for every day Bullman, 68, remained at Norristown's Building 51 - a civil-side bed materialized. "Leo has been moved," said Luna Pattela, a lawyer with the mental health unit of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, which has represented Bullman in a pending assault charge from a neighborhood dispute.

Waving small plastic shovels, a crowd of 100 well-wishers broke symbolic ground Thursday on a new performing arts center for Norristown that officials hope will help bring cultural revival and economic prosperity back to the beleaguered Montgomery County seat. I'm so thrilled," said Erin Reilly, cofounder of Theatre Horizon, Norristown's professional drama company. "Today is the day when dreams come true. It's an auspicious beginning. " While the renovation to the first floor of the former Bell Telephone Building will provide permanent digs for the drama company for the first time, a lot more is riding on the $1 million project.

On a March morning in 2009, Tyree Bush fired a 9mm weapon at a man heading to a corner store in Overbrook to buy Pampers. The timid teenager was a lousy shot, striking the victim in the hand. Bush, a gentle loner with an IQ of 52, had no clue what he was doing except following orders from a menacing neighborhood drug dealer. For the next three years, state and local officials found themselves equally perplexed about how to punish, and release, an unlikely felon at a time of dwindling resources for the intellectually disabled.

Montgomery County prosecutors are seeking the return to prison of an Upper Merion man hospitalized for mental-health treatment after his arrest in the stabbing deaths of his parents and twin brother in March. Joseph McAndrew Jr., 24, is charged with first- and third-degree murder and related offenses in the March 5 slayings of Joseph McAndrew, 70; Susan McAndrew, 64; and James McAndrew, 23, in Upper Merion Township. Assistant District Attorney Tracey Potere filed a petition Friday seeking to have McAndrew transferred from Norristown State Hospital to the county prison.

Natalie Moe-Paul had just arrived for the overnight shift at Norristown State Hospital when her cellphone rang. On the line was Niche Knight, a coworker. Knight was struggling to fix a flat tire outside the campus gates. Moe-Paul was happy to help. She adored Knight, a hardworking single mother of seven whose wit and calm demeanor lightened their late-night shifts. Moe-Paul circled back out the entrance and saw Knight standing at the trunk of her Kia sedan, its hazard lights blinking, on the road's edge.

The former president of a union representing workers at Norristown State Hospital has been charged with stealing more than $22,000 of its funds. Montgomery County prosecutors say Thomas Lee Wicker, who headed American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2348, withdrew thousands of dollars from the union's account through ATMs and checks made out to local vendors for food, gas, and other expenses he claimed were incurred on union...

Edna M. Rice, a physical therapist who worked at the Norristown State Hospital and Eastern State Penitentiary and ran her own rehabilitation business, died Sept. 9 after a lengthy illness. She was 68. She was director of physical therapy at Norristown State Hospital and was a contract physical therapist for several years at the prison. She ran Rice Rehabilitation, which also included home health care, for many years. Edna was born in Philadelphia to the late Marvin J. and Henrietta Young, and was raised by her grandparents, Minerva Jessie and Paul Young.

Musician Richard Malvin Slater, 87, of Norristown, died Nov. 25 of a heart attack at home. A 1940 graduate of Norristown High School, Mr. Slater studied music privately and began his career as a drummer before enlisting in the Navy during World War II. Upon completing basic training at Great Lakes Naval Air Base in Illinois, he served as a musician first-class in Kodiak, Alaska, and at the U.S. Navy Pre-Flight School in Chapel Hill, N.C.,...