Former Hartford Police Officer Jill Kidik had a say on how long the woman who nearly killed her by stabbing her in the neck in 2018 was to be committed. The nearly 40-year term at Connecticut's maximum-security mental health hospital “was fair for the amount of life she took from me,” Kidik said.

But Kidik didn’t have a say in the hospital's recent decision to move her attacker, Chevoughn Augustin, to a less secure setting.

Kidik is among several people expected to voice their opposition to the decision at a hearing before the state Psychiatric Security Review Board on Jan. 27.

In the past, these hearings were required before a patient who had been acquitted of a crime could be moved to a less restrictive environment. But under a new law, a committee of medical and mental health professionals decided Augustin was well enough to be moved from the maximum-security Whiting Forensic Hospital to Dutcher, a locked, but less secure facility that is part of the Whiting complex, officials said last week. 

At Dutcher, it’s possible for Augustin to earn the privilege of being alone on hospital grounds or go off campus with supervision, said Vanessa Cardella, executive director of the Psychiatric Security Review Board. 

The law allows for a hearing to be requested, Cardella said, and if the board decides the patient is not ready for the change, it can order the patient to return to Whiting. Whiting Maximum Security Service, as it is formally called, Dutcher Enhanced Security Service and the less-secure Restoration Treatment Program are all part of the campus of Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown. The facility is the only state-run mental health hospital in Connecticut for patients who have been deemed criminally insane.

Augustin is the third person to be moved under the new law, which also seeks to improve the overall environment for patients and staff at Whiting, where 10 employees were arrested and more were fired during a 2017 abuse scandal. 

James Ward and Michael Karolkowski are the other acquitted patients who have been transferred to less secure settings since the new law took effect Oct. 1, Cardella said. Karolkowski, who has about a half-dozen state convictions since 2014 for minor charges like breach of peace, also was arrested after incidents during which police say he fired a gun in his Shelton home in 2011 and set his house on fire in 2017. State records indicate he was committed in March 2020. However, it wasn't clear which charges were dropped.

Of the 144 acquitted patients, 19 remain in Whiting’s maximum-security setting, Cardella said. Eighty-eight are in a unit that is locked but is less secure and 27 are on some kind of temporary leave, which is the first stage of reintegration into the community, she said.

Arthur Mongillo, spokesperson for the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, which oversees Whiting, said staff members carefully assess whether patients should be moved. As the law requires, a Forensic Review Committee comprised of licensed clinical professionals and administrators review each transfer request. 

“These are not decisions that are taken lightly,” Mongillo said.

When people are found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, the court sets maximum terms of commitment, usually similar to the maximum time the defendants would have spent in prison if they had been convicted. But the commitment period can be extended, meaning people can spend the rest of their lives at Whiting, according to advocates for those with mental illness.

“If there’s no reason to keep someone at the highest level of security, it only makes sense to move them down to a lower level," Mongillo said.

Kidik, who testified against the bill that became Public Act No. 22-45, disagrees.

Although acquitted patients were found not responsible for their crimes because of serious mental illness, Kidik said the law disregards the fact that they still committed those acts.

“There are people who can be rehabilitated," Kidik said in a phone interview with Hearst Connecticut Media Group. “But you cannot just forget about the crime.” 

The law also removes the voices of victims and disregards the committal period handed down by the judge, she said.

“And so the 39 ½ years don’t mean anything,” Kidik said of Augustin's original sentence.

'I’m not the same person'

Kidik said Augustin made a conscious decision to run after her and stab her after the officer asked for her identification the day of the attack on May 17, 2018. Kidik had responded to what was expected to be a routine call about a landlord-tenant dispute. 

Augustin had startled residents with her odd behavior in the Constitution Plaza apartment building and the management company had started eviction proceedings against her, according to The Hartford Courant. At first, the two women’s conversation was calm, but Augustin’s demeanor suddenly changed and she clawed Kidik’s tear duct, dragged her by the hair to the kitchen and went through her utensils drawer until she found a knife. 

Kidik said she made it out of the apartment and “I was running away from Chevoughn while two (maintenance) men witnessed her taking a purple knife and her splitting my trachea in half.” 

Kidik said she felt her life slipping away as the maintenance workers, a building manager and Hartford Police Officer Alexander Ortolaza, a longtime friend, rushed to her aid. 

While she survived, Kidik said she will never be the same. She was promoted to detective, but retired from the police department at age 35.  

“I have people who don’t understand why I’m not the same person I was before. I have more anxiety. I can’t have loud noise. It’s overwhelming to me if I have too much noise. They had to drill into my shin, my bone marrow, to give me bags of other people’s blood. There just isn’t enough therapists to fix you.” 

Kidik doesn’t think the change in the law is good for Augustin, either. If the review board orders her back to Whiting, “Are we going to play ping ping with her?” she asked. “It’s not good for her.”

Andrew Reynolds said he empathizes with Kidik. Reynolds is also concerned about the changes. He is mostly worried about the gap in time between when the patient is transferred to a less secure setting and when the Psychiatric Security Review Board holds its hearing. In Augustin’s case, she was moved Jan. 5, more than 20 days before the hearing. 

“The PSRB has been removed from the whole process,” Reynolds said.

His fears are grounded in personal experience: David Peterson, a Connecticut Valley Hospital patient out on an eight-hour pass in the summer of 1989, grabbed Reynold’s niece, Jessica Short, and stabbed her more than 30 times at a Middletown street fair. The 9-year-old died at Middlesex Hospital.

Peterson, who had been found innocent by reason of insanity of assault and burglary charges, remains in Whiting’s maximum-security unit.

At least for now. 

“The same thing (that happened to Augustin) can happen to David Peterson,” he said. “He can be transferred.” 

He plans to watch the Jan. 27 hearing.

Kidik will be there, too.

“And I’m going to be speaking my mind," she said. 

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect Connecticut Valley Hospital, including Whiting, is the only state-run mental health facility in Connecticut for patients who have been deemed criminally insane.

Christine Dempsey may be reached at Christine.Dempsey@hearstmediact.com.