GREENSBURG — A Kansas man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing another patient at a mental health facility three days after he was discharged from a state psychiatric hospital.
The Hutchinson News reports that 31-year-old Brandon Brown, of Haviland, was sentenced Wednesday in Kiowa County District Court for second-degree murder. He pleaded no contest in October in a case that prompted a state inquiry.
Prosecutors say Brown beat Jerry Martinez so severely in May 2015 at a residential care facility that the 61-year-old died the next month. Brown had spent a week at the state-run psychiatric hospital in Osawatomie after fighting with residents at the Haviland Care Center near Wichita. The fatal beating happened after he was discharged from Osawatomie into the care of the Haviland facility.
