The closure of Three Rivers State Hospital culminates in February 1994, when Hatch Forensic Institute—the system’s last operating facility—ceased to exist. It followed a three-month trial over negligence related to the spread of AIDS and HIV at Hatch: Richard Hume and four other physician-administrators were cleared, while the facility’s 127 remaining inmates were transferred to Middletown. The ending is both administrative and physical: patients leave, the forensic hospital closes, and the future of its former grounds remains unresolved.

Political and Legal Background

The book links the institution’s history to the public and political consequences of the Jimmy Lane murder case. Lane had wandered away from a supervised group while on a day pass from Westwood and killed a child. Because he had no prior record indicating violent behavior, the case intensified public fears about mental illness and provoked anger when the insanity defense prevented a criminal conviction. The account describes a political backlash against the system as well as the stigma reinforced by the case.

In response, the governor fired the commissioner and the department was restructured; the Psychiatric Security Review Board was established. The book later shows how institutional rules shaped Thomas Birdsey’s confinement. After a surgeon at Shanley Memorial initiated a Physician’s Emergency Certificate, Hatch could hold Thomas for fifteen court-ordered days of observation to assess whether he posed a danger to himself or others. At a subsequent hearing, the Board voted unanimously to retain him for a year, citing potential danger to himself and others, with a review scheduled for October 1991. His case illustrates the review and detention system operating within the institution that would eventually close.

Discharges and the Institutional Record

The closure belongs to a longer process of patients leaving the state hospital. In March 1992, Prosperine Albrizio was among the third-to-last wave of psychiatric patients discharged from the Settle Building before it closed. The narrator found no surviving—or existing—record of a Prosperine Tucci, and no evidence that Prosperine Albrizio and Thomas Birdsey had known one another during their long stays at Settle. The account therefore leaves both the identification of the two Prosperines and any possible encounter between her and Thomas uncertain; the institution’s records cannot settle the questions the family history raises.

Closure and Aftermath

The final transfer marks the end of Three Rivers State Hospital’s remaining operation: after the 127 inmates at Hatch were moved to Middletown, the forensic hospital ceased to exist. The narrative places this institutional ending after the negligence trial, but does not present the acquittals as restoring the hospital or resolving the questions surrounding care and oversight. The closure is instead a concrete endpoint to the state system’s operation, following years in which confinement, risk assessments, and review procedures shaped patients’ lives.

The grounds carry a separate, unresolved history. They had once formed part of the sacred hunting and fishing lands of the Wequonnoc Nation, and the narrator says they may revert to the Nation through annexation for expansion. Tribal officials and the Governor of Connecticut are still negotiating; the possible return is not described as completed. The hospital’s end therefore leaves the land’s next use open, linking institutional closure to an ongoing question of who will hold and shape the former grounds.